The Autobiography Of Bertrand Russell

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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
BERTRAND RUSSELL

“In volume I he disposed of wife number one Md
his famed Principia Mathematica. Now RusWll
slams the door of the ivory tower shut and steps
out boldly — into hot water ... A LIVELY, PRO-
VOCATIVE, INTENSE STORY— BE SURE TO
READ IT. THE MATERIAL IS ENDLESSLY
FASCINATING.”

Saturday Review Syndicate

“THE SHEER FASCINATION OF THE NAR- -
RATIVE CLAIMS OUR ATTENTION far more
insistently than the puzzle of his detachment . .
As before, he writes sharply and frankly about his
galaxy of friends.”

-The Nation

Contents

Preface

vu

Acknow nrs

vui

I.

The First '•'v

1

125

n.

Ru^sla

ra.

China

209

IV.

Second Marri.tce

V.

Later Years Teltci.srh riou'e

America; 19cS-iy-'-'

315

VI.

Index

3 si

“CLEAR, INCISIVE, FREQUENTLY WITTY,
AS HONEST AS HIS INNER CHECK AND
THE LAW WILL ALLOW, Russell has written
the history of an emblematic life: Exemplary in its
devotion to both emotion and truth, triumphant
in its dedication to our freedom to decently pur-
sue them, and s3miptomatic of the consequences
of their separation in its sometimes painful fail-
ures.”

— Book World

“A QUIXOTIC MAN IS REVEALED IN
THESE PAGES: A man who could have lived a
life of donnish ease, but who chose to defend un-
popular causes; a man who wrote books of great
difficulty, but could also manage books that were
popular best sellers.”

— ^The New York Times

“BERTRAND RUSSELL IS AS CANDID,
CANTANKEROUS, AND CHARMING AS BE-
FORE IN THE SECOND VOLUME OF HIS
MEMOIRS.”

— San Francisco Chronicle

“ . . . \VTiy doe§*'dne* find Tiiiri 'suctf' compulsive
reading? Vv^LL, INTELLECTUAL VIGOR,
HIGH SPIRITS, CANDOR, FUN, NAUGHTI-
NESS, JOKE5, ALL KEEP THE BOOK TIN-
GLINGLY ALIVE. Then, too, there are such in-
teresting people vith whom he has passed his life.”

— -Wall Street Joarnai

“RUSSELL IS STILL A MASTER PROSE
STYLIST AND AN ELEGANT WIT, ^TH A
BITCHY TOUCH OF THE WILDE.”

— ^Time

“Usually the second volume of an autobiography
falls rather flat, but not so in this book. HAVING
ADORED THE FIRST VOLUME I FOUl®
THIS ONE IF ANYTHING EVEN MORE FAS-
CINATING — ^partially, perhaps, because it has
so much relevance to what is going on here and
now, but also because it is so marvelously funny.”

— Jessica Mitford

Books by Bertrand Russell

AJB.C. OF RELATIVITY
ANALYSIS OF MATTER
NEW HOPES FOR A CHANGING WORLD
THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON SOCIETY
AUTHORITY ANT) THE INDIVIDUAL
HUMAN knowledge: its SCOPE AND LIMir
HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY
THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICS
INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY
THE ANALYSIS OF MIND
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD
AN OUTLINE OF PHILOSOPHY
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ
AN INQUIRY INTO MEANING AND TRUTH

PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
FACT AND FICTION
MY PHILOSOPHICAL DEVELOPMENT
PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY
V/HY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN
UNPOPULAR ESSAYS
POWER

IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS
THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS
SCEPTICAL ESSAYS
MYSTICISM AND LOGIC
THE SCIENTIFIC OUTLOOK
MARRIAGE AND MORALS
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL ORDER
ON EDUCATION

COMMON SENSE AND NUCLEAR WARFARE
HAS MAN A FUTURE?

POLITICAL IDEALS

PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION
UNARMED VICTORY

FREEDOM AND ORGANIZATION, 1814-1914
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL EECONSTRUCnON
ROADS TO FREEDOM
PRACTICE AND THEORY OF BOLSHEVISM
THE PROBLEM OF CHINA

THE BASIC WRITINGS OF BERTRAND RUSSELL
BERTRAND RUSSELL’S BEST
LOGIC AND KNOWLEDGE

NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS
SATAN IN THE SUBURBS
THE AMBERLEY PAPERS

with Patricia Russell

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BERTRAND RUSSELL

Volumes I and n

THE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

BERTRAND

RUSSELL

1914-1944

This low-priced Bantam Book
has been completely reset in a type jace
designed for easy reading, and was printed
from new plates. It contains the complete
text of the original hard-cover edition.

NOT ONE WOED HAS BEEN OMTITED.

w

THE AXrrOBIOCHAPHY OF BEETRAND EUSSELI, 1914-1944
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with
Little, Brown and Company in association with
The Atlantic Monthly Press

PRINTING HISTORY
Little, Brown edition published 1968
Bantam edition published May 1969

Brief passages in this volume were previously published in Portraits
from Memory by Bertrand Russell, and are quoted here by permis-
sion of Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Excerpts from the letters of D. H. Lawrence are reprinted from the
Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence edited by Barry T. Moore and
published by The Viking Press, Inc. '

All rights reserved. SL

Copyright © 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956 by Bertrand Russell.
Copyright © 1968 by George Allen and Unwin Ltd.

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FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The Defiled Sanctuary
by William Blake

I saw a chapel all of gold

That none did dare to enter in.

And many weeping stood without, '
Weeping, mourning, worshipping.

I saw a serpent rise between
The white pillars of the door,

And he forced and forced and forced
Till down the golden hinges tore:

And along the pavement sweet,

Set with pearls and rubies bright,

All his shining length he drew, —

Till upon the altar white

Vomited his poison out

On the bread and on the wine.

So I turned into a sty.

And laid me down among the swine.

Acknowledgements are due the following for per-
mission to include certain letters in this voliune;
Les Amis d’Henri Barbusse; Margaret Cole, for
the letter of Beatrice Webb; John Conrad,
through J. M. Dent & Sons, for the letters of
Joseph Conrad; Valerie Eliot, for the letters of
T. S, Eliot; the Estate of Albert Einstein; the
Executors of the H. G. Wells Estate (© 1968
George Philip Wells and Frank Wells); Peam,
PoKinger & Higham, with the concurrence of Wil-
liam Heinemann Ltd. and the Vikmg Press, Inc.,
for passages from the letters of D. H. Lawrence;
the Public Trustee and the Society of Authors, for
the letters of Bernard Shaw; .the Trustees of the
Will of Mrs. Bernard Shaw; and the Coimcil of
Trinity College, Cambridge. Facsimiles of Crown-
copyright records in the Public Record Office
appear by permission of the Controller of H.M.
Stationery Office. The above list includes only
those who requested formal acknowledgement;
many others have kindly granted permission to
publish letters.

The period from 1910 to 1914 was a time of transition.
My life before 1910 and my life after 1914 were as sharply
separated as Faust’s life before and after he met Mephis-
topheles. I underwent a process of rejuvenation, inaugu-
rated by Ottoline Morrell and continued by the War, It
may seem curious that the War should rejuvenate any-
body, but in fact it shook me out of my prejudices and
made me think afresh on a number of fundamental ques-
tions. It also provided me with a new kind of activity, for
which I did not feel the staleness that beset me whenever
1 tried to return to mathematical logic. I have therefore
got into the habit of thinking of myself as a non-super-
natural Faust for whom Mephistopheles was represented
by the Great War.

During the hot days at the end of July, I was at Cam-
bridge, discussing the situation with ail and sundry. I
found it impossible to believe that Emope would be so
mad as to plunge into war, but I was persuaded that, if
there was war, England would be involved. I felt strongly
that England ought to remain neutral, and I collected the
signatures of a large number of professors and Fellows to
a statement which appeared in the Manchester Guardian
to that effect. The day war was declared, almost all of
them changed their minds. Looking back, it seems ex-
traordinary that one did not realize more clearly what was
coming. On Sunday, August 2nd, as mentioned in the
earlier volume of this autobiography, I met Keynes hurry-
ing across the Great Court of Trimty to borrow his
brother-in-law’s motorcycle to go up to London.* I pres-
ently discovered that the Government had sent for him to

* His brother-in-law was A. V. Hill, eminent in scientiflc medicine.
He had rooms on the next staircase to mine.

3

4 Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

, give them financial advice. This made me reklize the im-
minence of our participation in the War. On the Monday
morning I decided to go to London. I lunched with the
Morrells at Bedford Square, and found Ottoline entirely
of my way of thinking. She agreed with Philip’s determina-
tion to make a pacifist speech in the House. I went down
to the House in the hope of hearing Sir Edward Grey’s
famous staterhent, but the crowd was too great, and I
failed to. get in. I learned, however, that Philip had duly
made his .s^^ech.- 1 spent the evening w alkin g roimd the
streets, especially in the neighbourhood of Trafalgar
, Square, hotfcing cheering crowds, and making myself sen-
sitive to the emotions of passers-by. During this and the
following days I discovered to my amazement that average
men and women were delighted at the prospect of war. I
had fondly imagined what most pacifists contended, that
wars were forced upon a reluctant population by despotic
and Machiavellian governments. I had noticed during pre-
vious years how carefully Sir Edward Grey lied in order to
prevent the public from knowing the methods by which
he was committing us to the support of France in the event
of war. I naively imagined that when the public discovered
how he had lied to them, they would be annoyed; instead
of which, they were grateful to him for having spared
them the moral responsibility.

On the morning of August 4th, I walked with Ottoline
up and down the empty streets behind the British Mu-
seum, where now there are University buildings. We dis-
cussed the future in gloomy terms. When we spoke to
others of the evils we foresaw, they thought us mad; yet it
turned out that we were twittering optimists compared to
the truth. On the evening of the 4th, after quarrelling with
George Trevelyan along the whole length of the Strand, I
attended the last meeting of a neutrality committee of
which Graham Wallas was chairman. During the meeting
there was a loud clap of thunder, which aU the older
members of the committee took to be a German bomb.
This dissipated their last lingering feeling in favour of

The First War

5

neutrality. The first days of the war were to me utterly
amazing. My best friends, such as the Whiteheads, were
savagely warlike. Men like J. L. Hammond, who had
been writing for years against participation in a European
war, were swept ofl[ their feet by Belgium. As I had long
known from a military friend at the Staff College that
Bel^um would inevitably be involved, I had not supposed
important publicists so Mvolous as to be ignorant on this
vital matter. The Nation newspaper used to have a staff
luncheon every Tuesday, and I attended the luncheon on
August 4th. I found Massingham, the editor, vehemently
opposed to our participation in the War. He welcomed
enthusiastically my offer to write for his newspaper in that
sense. Next day I got a letter from him, beginning: “To-
day is not yesterday,” and stating that his opinion had
completely changed. Nevertheless, he printed a long letter
from me protesting against the War in his next issue.'*'
What changed his opinion I do not know. I know that one
of Asquith’s daughters saw him descending the steps of the
German Embassy late on the afternoon of August 4th, and
I have some suspicion that he was consequently warned of
the unwisdom of a lack of patriotism in such a crisis. For
the first year or so of the War he remained patriotic, but
as time went on he began to forget that he had ever been
so. A few pacifist M.P.’s, together with two or three sym-
pathizers, began to have meetings at the Morrells’ house
in Bedford Square. I used to attend these meetings, which
gave rise to the Union of Democratic Control. I was inter-
ested to observe that many of the padfist politicians were
more concerned with the question which of them should
lead the anti-war movement than with the actual work
against the War. Nevertheless, they were all there was to
work with, and I did my best to think well of them.

Meanwhile, I was living at the highest possible emo-
tional tension. Although I did not foresee anything like
the full disaster of the war, I foresaw a great deal more

* The full text is reproduced on pp. 40-43.

6 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

than most people did. The prospect filled me with horror,
but what filled me with even more horror was the fact that
the anticipation of carnage was delightful to something
like ninety per cent of the population. I had to revise my
views on human nature. At that time I was wholly igno-
rant of psychoanalysis, but I arrived for myself at a view
of human passions not unlike that of the psychoanalysts.
I arrived at this view in an endeavour to understand pop-
ular feeling about the War. I had supposed until that timp.
that it was quite common for parents to love their chil-
dren, but the War persuaded me that it is a rare exception.
I had supposed that most people liked money better than
almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked de-
struction even better. I had supposed that intellectuals
frequently loved truth, but I found here again that not ten
per cent of them prefer truth to popularity. Gilbert Mur-
ray, who had been a close friend of mine since 1902,
was a pro-Boer when I was not I therefore naturally ex-
pected that he would again be on the side of peace; yet he
went out- of his way to write about the wickedness of the
Germans, and the superhuman virtue of Sir Edward Grey.
I became filled with despairing tenderness towards the
young men who were to be slaughtered, and with rage
against all the statesmen of Europe. For several weeks I
felt that if I should happen to meet Asquith or Grey I
should be unable to refrain from murder. Gradually, how-
ever, these personal feelings disappeared. They were swal-
lowed up by the magnitude of the tragedy, and by the
realization of the popular forces which the statesmen
merely let loose.

In the midst of this, I was myself tortured by patriotism.
The successes of the Germans before the Battle of the
Marne were horrible to me. I desired the defeat of Ger-
many as ardently as any retired colonel. Love of England
is very nearly the strongest emotion I possess, and in
appearing to set it aside at such a moment, I was making a
very difficult remmciation. Nevertheless, I never had a
moment’s doubt as to what I must do. I have at times been

The First War

7

paralj'zed by scepticism, at times I have been cynical, at
other times indifferent, but when the War came I felt as
if I heard the voice of God. I knew that it was my business
to protest, however futile protest might be. My whole
nature was involved. As a lover of truth, the national
propaganda of all the belligerent nations sickened me. As
a lover of civilization, the return to barbarism appalled
ihe. As a man of thwarted parental feeling, the massacre
of the yoimg wrvmg my heart. I hardly supposed that much
good would come of opposing the War, but I felt that for
the honour of human nature those who were not swept off
■ their feet should show that they stood ffrm. After seeing
troop trains departing from Waterloo, I used to have
strange visions of London as a place of unreality. I used
in imagination to see the bridges coUapse and sink, and
the whole great city vanish like a morning mist. Its in-
habitants began to seem like hallucinations, and I would
wonder whether the world in which I thou^t I had lived
was a mere product of my own febrile nightmares.* Such
moods, however, were brief, and were put an end..to by
the ne^ of work. '

Throughout the earlier phases of the War, Ottoline was
a very great help and strength to me. But for her, I shoidd
have been at first completely solitary, but she never
wavered either in her hatred of war, or in her refusal' to
accept the myths and falsehoods with which the world was
inundated.

I found a minor degree of comfort in the conversation
of Santayana, who was at Cambridge at that time. He was
a neutral, and in any case he had not enough respect for
the human race to care whether it destroyed itself or not.
His calm, philosophical detachment, though I had no wish
to imitate it, was soothing to me. Just before the Battle of
the Marne, when it looked as if the Germans must soon
take Paris, he remarked in a dreamy tone of voice: I
think I must go over to Paris. My winter underclothes are

^ I spoke of this to T. S. Eliot, who put it into The Waste Land.

8

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

there, and I should not like the Germans to get them. I
have also another, though less important, reason, which is
that I have there a manuscript of a hook on which I have
been working for the last ten years, but I do not care so
much about that as about the underclothes.” He did not,
however, go to Paris, because the Battle of the Maine
saved him the trouble. Instead, he remarked to me one
day: “I am going to Seville tomorrow because I wish to he
in a place where people do not restrain their passions.”

With the beginning of the October Term, I had to start
again lecturing on mathematical logic, but I felt it a some-
what futile occupation. So I took to orga ni z in g a branch
of the Union of Democratic Control among the dons, of
whom at Trinity quite a number were at first sympafiietic.
I also addressed meetings of undergraduates who were
quite willing to listen to me. I remember in the course of a
speech, saying: “It is all nonsense to pretend the Germans
are wicked,” and to my surprise the whole room ap-
plauded. But with the sinking of the Lusitania, a fiercer
spirit began to prevail. It seemed to be supposed that I
was in some way responsible for this disaster. the oom
who had belonged to the Union of Democratic Conteol,
many had by this time got commissions. Barnes (after-
wards Bishop of Birmingham) left to become Master o
the Temple. The older dons got more and more hystenca^
and I began to find myself avoided at the hi^ table.

Every Christmas throughout the War I had a o
black despair, such complete despair that I could do noth-
ing except sit idle in my chair and wonder whetter me
human race served any purpose. At Christmas
1914, by Ottoline’s advice, I found a way of m^mg a ^
spair not unendurable. I took to visiting destitute Germ
on behalf of a charitable committee to mvestigate then
circumstances and to relieve their distress if they deserv
it. In the course of this work, I came upon .

instances of kindness in the middle of the fury of
infrequently in the poor neighbourhoods landladies, sm
selves poor, had allowed Germans to stay on without pay

The First War

9

ing any rent, because they knew it was impossible for Ger-
mans to find work. This problem ceased to exist soon
afterwards, as the Germans were all interned, but during
the first months of the War their condition was pitiable.

One day in October 1914 I met T. S. Eliot in New Ox-
ford Street. I did not know he was in Europe, but I found
he had come to England from Berlin. I naturally asked
him what he thought of the war. “I don’t know,” he re-
plied, “I only know that I am not a pacifist.” TTiat is to
say, he considered any excuse good enough for homicide.
I became great friends with him, and subsequently with
his wife, whom he married early in 1915. As they were
desperately poor, I lent them one of the two bedrooms in
my flat, with the result that I saw a great deal of them.* I
was fond of them both, and endeavoured to help them in
their troubles until I discovered that their troubles were
what they enjoyed. I held some debentures nominally
worth £.3000, in an engineering firm, which during the
War naturally took to m aking munitions. I was much puz-
23ed in my conscience as to what to do with these deben-
tures, and at last I gave them to Eliot. Years afterwards,
when the War was finis hed and he was no longer poor, he
gave them back to me.

Dining the summer of 1915 I wrote Principles of Social
Reconstruction, or Why Men Fight as it was called in
America without my consent. I had had no intention of
writing such a book, and it was totally unlike anything I
had previously written, but it came out in a spontaneous
manner. In fact I did not discover what it was all about
until I had finis hed it. It has a framework and a formula,
but I only discovered both when I had written aU except
the first and last words. In it I suggested a philosophy of
politics based upon the belief that impulse has more effect
than conscious purpose in moulding men’s lives. I divided
impulses into ,two groups, the possessive and the creative.

* The suggestion sometimes made, however, that one of us influenced
the other is without foundation.

10 The Aiaobiography oj Bertrand Russell

considering the best life that which is most built on crea-
tive impulses. I took, as examples of embodiments of the
possessive impulses, the State, war and poverty; and of the
creative impulses, education, marriage and religion. Liber-
ation of creativeness, I was convinced, should be the prin-
ciple of reform. I first gave the book as lectures,- and
then published it. To my surprise, it had an immediate
success. I had written it with no expectation of its being
read, merely^ as a profession of faith, but it brou^t me in
a great deal of money, and laid the foundation for all my
future earnings.

These lectures were in certain ways connected with my
short friendship with D. H. Lawrence. We both imagined
that there was something important to be said about the
reform of human relations, and we did not at first realize
that we took diametrically opposite views as to the kind of
reform that was needed. My acquaintance with Lawrence
was brief and hectic, lasting altogether about a year. We
were brought together by Ottoline, who admired us both
and made us think that we ought to admire each other.
Pacifism had produced in me a mood of bitter rebellion,
and I found Lawrence equally full of rebellion. This made
us think, at first, that there was a considerable measure of
agreement between us, and it was only gradually that we
discovered that we dffiered &om each other more than
either differed from the Kaiser.

There were in Lawrence at that time two attitudes to
the War: on the one hand, he could not be whole-heart-
edly patriotic, because his wife was German; but on the
other hand, he had such a hatred of mankind that he
tended to think both sides must be right in so far as they
hated each other. As I came to know these attitudes, I
realized that neither was one with which I could sympa-
thize. Awareness of our differences, however, was gradual
on both sides, and at first all went merry as a mamage
beU. I invited him to visit me at Cambridge and introduced
him to Keynes and a number of other people. He hated
them all with a passionate hatred and said they were

The First War

11

“dead, dead, dead.” For a time I thought he might be
right. I liked Lawrence’s fire, I liked the energy and pas-
sion of his feelings, I liked his belief that something very
fundamental was needed to put the world right, I agreed
with him in thinking that politics could not be divorced
from individual psychology. I felt him to be a man of a
certain imaginative genius, and, at first, when I felt in-
clined to disagree with him, I thought that perhaps his
insight into human nature was deeper than mine. It was
only gradually that I came to feel him a positive force
for evil and that he came to have the same feeling about
me.

I was at this time preparing the course of lectures which
was afterwards published as Principles of Social Recon-
struction. He, also, wanted to lecture, and for a time it
seemed possMe that there mi^t be some sort of loose
collaboration between us. We exchanged a number of
letters, of which mine are lost but his have been published.
In his letters the gradual awareness of the consciousness
of our fundamental disagreements can be traced. I was a
firm believer in democracy, whereas he bad developed the
whole philosophy of Fascism before the politicians had
thought of it. “I don’t believe,” he wrote, “in democratic
control. I think the working man is fit to elect governors
or overseers for his immediate drcumstances, but for no
more. You must utterly revise the electorate. The working
man shah, elect superiors for the things that concern him
immediately, no more. From the other classes, as they
rise, shall be elected the higher governors. The thing must
culminate in one real head, as every organic thing must — -
no foolish republic with foolish presidents, but an elected
King, something like Julius Caesar.” He, of course, in his
imagination, supposed that when a dictatorship was estab-
lished he would be the Julius Caesar. This, was part of the
dream-like quality of all his thinking. He never let himself
bump into reality. He would go into long tirades aboih
how one must proclaim “the Truth” to the multitude, ^
he seemed to have no doubt that the multitude worn

12

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

ten. I asked him what method he was going to adopt.
Wovild he put his political philosophy into a book? No: in
our corrupt society the written word is always a lie. Would
he go into Hyde Park and proclaim “the Truth” from a
soap box? No: that would be far too dangerous (odd
streaks of prudence emerged in him from time to time).
Well, I said, what would you do? At this point he would
change the subject.

Gradually I discovered that he had no real wish to make
the world better, but only to indulge in eloquent soliloquy
about how bad it was. If anybody overheard the solilo-
quies, so much the better, but they were designed at most
to produce a little faithful band of disciples who could sit
in the deserts of New Mexico and feel holy. All this was
conveyed to me in the language of a Fascist dictator as
what I must preach, the “must” having thirteen under-
linings.

His letters grew gradually more hostile. He wrote,
“What’s the good of living as you do anyway? I don’t be-
lieve your lectures are good. They are nearly over, aren’t
they? What’s the good of sticking in the damned ship and
haranguing the merchant pilgrims in their own language?
Why don’t you drop overboard? Why don’t you clear out
of the whole show? One must be an outlaw these days,
not a teacher or preacher.” This seemed to me mere rheto-
ric. I was becoming more of an outlaw than he ever was
and I could not quite see his ground of complaint against
me. He phrased his complaint in different ways at different
times. On another occasion he wrote: “Do stop working
and writing altogether and become a creature instead of a
mechanical instrument. Do clear out of the whole social
ship. Do for your very pride’s sake become a mere noth-
ing, a mole, a creature that feels its way and doesn’t think.
Do for heavens sake be a baby, and not a savant any
more. Don’t do anything more — but for heavens sake
begin to be — Start at the very be ginnin g and be a per-
fect baby: in the name of courage.

“Oh, and I want to ask you, when you make your

The First War

13

will, do leave me enougji to live on. I want you to live
for ever. But I want you to make me in some part your
heir.”

The only difficulty with this progr amm e was that if I
adopted it I should have nothing to leave.

He had a mystical philosophy of “blood” which I dis-
liked. “There is,” he said, “another seat of consciousness
than the brain and nerves. There is a blood-consciousness
which exists in us independently of the ordinary mental
consciousness. One lives, knows and has one’s being in the
blood, without any reference to nerves and brain. This is
one half of life belonging to the darkness. When I take a
woman, then the blood-percept is supreme. My blood-
knowing is overwhelming. We should realize that we have
a blood-being, a blood-consciousness, a blood-soul com-
plete and apart from a mental and nerve consciousness,”
This seemed to me frankly rubbish, and I rejected it vehe-
mently, thou^ I did not then know that it led straight to
Auschwitz.

He always got into a fury if one suggested that anybody
could possibly have kindly feelings towards anybody else,
and when I objected to war because of the suffering that it
causes, he accused me of hypocrisy. “It isn’t in the least
true that you, your basic self, want ultimate peace. You
are satisfying in an indirect, false way your lust to jab and
strike. Either satisfy it in a direct and honourable way,
saying ‘I hate you all, liars and swine, and am out to set
upon you,’ or stick to mathematics, where you can be true
— ■ But to come as the angel of peace — no, I prefer
Tirpitz a thousand times in that role.”

I find it difficult now to understand the devastating
effect that this letter had upon me. I was inclined to be-
lieve that he had some insist denied to me, and when he
said that my pacifism was rooted in blood-lust I supposed
he must be right. For twenty-four hours I thought that I
was not fit to live and contemplated suicide. But at the end
of that time, a healthier reaction set in, and I decided to
have done with such morbidness. When he said that I must

14

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

preach his doctrines and not mine I rebelled, and told him
to remember that 'he v/as no longer a schoolmaster and I
was not his pupil. He had written^ “The enemy of all man-
land you are, full of the lust of enmity. It is not a hatred
of falsehood which inspires you, it is the hatred of people
of flesh and blood, it is a perverted mental blood-lust. Why
don’t you own it? Let us become strangers again. I fhinl-
it is better.” I thought so too. But he found a pleasure in
denouncing me and continued for some months to write
letters containing sufficient friendliness to keep the cor-
respondence alive. In the end, it faded away without any
dramatic termination.

Lawrence, though most people did not realize it, was his
wife’s mouthpiece. He had the eloquence, but she had the
ideas. She used to spend part of every summer in a colony
of Austrian Freudians at a time when psychoanalysis was
little known in England. Somehow, she imbibed prema-
turely the ideas afterwards developed by Mussolini and
Hitler, and these ideas she transmitted to Lawrence, shall
we say, by blood-consciousness. Lawrence was an essen-
tially timid man who tried to conceal his timidity by blus-
ter. His wife was not timid, and her denunciations have
the character of thunder, not of bluster. Under her wing
he felt comparatively safe. Like Marx, he had a snobbish
pride in having married a German aristocrat, and in Lady
Chatterley he dressed her up marvellously. His thought .
was a mass of self-deception masquerading as stark real-
ism. His descriptive powers were remarkable, but his ideas
cannot be too soon forgotten.

What at first attracted me to Lawrence was a ceitein
dynamic quality and a habit of challenging assumptions
that one is apt to take for granted. I was already accus-
tomed to being accused of undue slavery to reason, and I
thou^t perhaps that he could give me a vivif3nng dose of
unreason. I did in fact acquire a certain stimulus from him,
and I tliinlr the book that I wrote in spite of his blasts of
denunciation was better than it would have been if I had
not known him.

The First War

15

But this is not to say that there was anything good in
his ideas. I do not thi^ in retrospect that they had any
merit whatever. They were the ideas of a sensitive would-
be despot who got angry with the world because it would
not instantly obey. When he realized that other people
existed, he hated them. But most of the time he lived in a
solitary world of his own imaginings, peopled by phan-
toms as fierce as he wished them to be. His excessive em-
phasis on sex was due to the fact that in sex alone he
was compelled to admit that he was not the only human
being in the universe. But it was so painful that he con-
ceived of sex relations as a perpetual fight in which each

is attempting to destroy the other.

The world between the wars was attracted to madness.
Of this attraction Nazism was the most emphatic expres-
sion. Lawrence was a suitable exponent of this cult of in-
sanity. I am not sure whether the cold mhuman sanity of

Stalin’s Kremlin was any improvement.

With the coming of 1916, the War took on a fiercer
form, and the position of pacifists at home became more
difficult. My relations with Asquith had never become un-
friendly. He was an admirer of Ottoline’s before she
ried, and I used to meet him every now and then at
sington, where she lived. Once when I had been bathing
stark naked in a pond, I found him on the bank ^ I came
out. The quality of dignity which should have charac er
ized a meeting between the Prime Minister and a pac
was somewhat lacking on this occasion. But at any ^
had the feeling that he was not likely to lock me up. At me
time of the Easter Rebellion in I^ublin, thirty-seven con-
scientious objectors were condenmed to death an ^
of us went on a deputation to Asquith to get ^ .

tences reduced. Although he was just startmg ’

he listened to us courteously, and took the n^e ^
tion. It had been generally supposed, even y

* See also my letters to Ottoline wth reference to Lawrence on pp.

16

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

ment, that conscientious objectors were not legally liable
to the death penalty, but this turned out to be a mistake,
and but for Asquith a number of them would have been
shot,

Lloyd George, however, was a tougher proposition. I
went once with Clifford Allen (chairman of the No Con-
scription Fellowship) and Miss Catherine Marshall, to
interview him about the conscientious objectors who were
being kept in prison. The only time that he could see us was
at lunch at Walton Heath. I disliked having to receive his
hospitality, but it seemed unavoidable. His manner to us
was pleasant and easy, but he offered no satisfaction of
any kind. At the end, as we were leaving, I made him a
speech of denunciation in an almost Biblical style, telling
him his name would go down to history with infamy. I
had not the pleasure of meeting him thereafter.

With the coming of conscription, I gave practically my
whole time and energies to the affairs of the conscientious
objectors. The No Conscription Fellowship consisted en-
tirely of men of military age, but it accepted women and
older men as associates. After all the original committee
had gone to prison, a substitute committee was formed, of
which I became the acting chairman. There was a great
deal of work to do, partly in looking after the interests of
individuals, partly in keeping a watch upon the mihtary
authorities to see that they did not send conscientious ob-
jectors to France, for it was only after they had been sent
to France that they became liable to the death penalty.
Then there was a great deal of speaking to be done up and
down the country. I spent three weeks in the mini ng areas
of Wales, speaking sometimes in halls, sometimes out-of-
doors. I never had an interrupted meeting, and always
found the majority of the audience sympathetic so long as
I confined myself to industrial areas. In London, how-
ever, the rhatter was different

Clifford Allen,* the chairman of the No Conscription

Afterwards Lord Allen of Hurtwood.

The First War

17

Fellowship, was a young man of great ability and astute-
ness. He was a Socialist, and not a Christian. There was
always a certain difficulty in keeping harmonious relations
between Christian and Socialist pacifists, and in this re-
spect he showed admirable impartiality. In the summer of
1916, hbwever, he was court-martialled and sent to
prison. After that, throughout the duration of the War, I
only saw him during the occasional days between sen-
tences. He was released on grounds of health (being, in
fact, on the point of death) early in 1918, but shortly
after that I went to prison myself.

It was at Qifford Allen’s police court case when he was
first called up that I first met Lady Constance Malleson,
generally known by her stage name of Colette O’Niel. Her
mother, Lady Annesley, had a friendship with Prince
Henry of Prussia which began before the war and was
resumed when the war was over. This, no doubt, gave her
some bias in favour of a neutral attitude, but Colette and
her sister. Lady Clare Annesley, were both genuine paci-
fists, and threw themselves into the work of the No Con-
scription Fellowship. Colette was married to Miles MaUe-
son, the actor and playwright. He had enlisted in 1914,
but had had the good luck to be discharged on account of
a slight weakness in one foot. The advantageous position
which he thus secured, he used most generously on behaK
of the conscientious objectors, having after his enlistment
become persuaded of the truth of the pacifist position. I
noticed Colette in the police court, and was introduced to
her. I found that she was one of Allen’s friends and
learned from him that she was generous with her time, free
in her opinions, and whole-hearted in her pacifism. That
she was young and very beautiful, I had seen for myself.
She was on the stage, and had had a rapid success with
two leading parts in succession, but when the War came
she spent the whole of the daytime in addressing envelopes
in the office of the No Conscription FeUowsMp. On these
data, I naturally took steps to get to know her better.

My relations with Ottoline had been in the meantime

18

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

gro^g less intimate. In 1915, she left London and went
to live at the Manor House at Garsington, near Oxford.
It was a beautiful old house which had been- used as a
and she became absorbed in restoring aU its poten-
tialities. I used to go down to Garsington fairly frequently,
but found her comparatively indifferent to me.* I sougbt
about for some other woman to relieve my imhappiness, but
without success until I met Colette. After the police court
proceedings I met Colette next at a dinner of a group of
pacifists. I walked back from the restaurant with her and
others to the place where she lived, which was 43 Bernard
Street, near RusseU Square. I felt strongly attracted, but
had no chance to do much about it beyond mentioning
that a few days later I was to make a speech in the Port-
man Rooms, Baker Street. When I came to make the
speech, I saw her on one of the front seats, so I asked her
after the meeting to come to supper at a restaurant, and
then walked back with her. This time I came in, which I
had not done before. She was very young, but I found her
possessed of a degree of cahn courage as great as Otto-
line’s (courage is a quality that I find essential in any
woman whom I am to love seriously). We talked half the
night,, and in the middle of talk became lovers. There are
those who say that one should be prudent, but I do not
agree with them. We scarcely knew each other, and yet in
that moment there began for both of us a relation pro-
foundly serious and profoundly important, sometimes
happy, sometimes painful, but never trivial and never un-
worthy to be placed alongside of the great public emotions
coimected with the War. Indeed, the War was bound into
the texture of this love from first to last. The first time that
I was ever in bed with her (we did not go to bed the first
time we were lovers, as there was too much to say), we
heard suddenly a shout of bestial triumph in the street. I
leapt out of bed and saw a Zeppelin falling in flames. The

* Some of my letters to Lady OttoUne, -niitten during the early years
of the War and reflecting the state of my mind at that time, are to be
found on pp. 55-62.

The First War

19

thought of brave men dying in agony was what caused the
triumph in the street. Colette’s love was in that moment a
refuge to me, not from cruelty itself, which was unes-
capable, but from the agonfring pain of realizing that that
is what men are. I remember a Sunday which we spent
walking on the South Downs. At evening we came to
Lewes Station to take the train back to London. The sta-
tion was crowded with soldiers, most of them going back
to the Front, almost all of them drunk, half of them ac-
companied by drunken prostitutes, the other half by wives
or sweethearts, aU despairing, all reckless, all mad. The
harshness and horror of the war world overcame me, but
I clung to Colette. In a world of hate, she preserved love,
love in every sense of the word from the most ordinary to
the most profound, and she had a quality of rock-hke
immovability, which in those days was invaluable.

After the night in which the Zeppelin feU I left her in
the early morning to return to my brother’s house in Gor-
don Square where I was living. I met on the way an old
man selling flowers, who was calling out: “Sweet lovely
roses!” I bought a bunch of roses, paid him for them, and
told him to deliver them in Bernard Street. Everyone
would suppose that he would have kept the money and
not delivered the roses, but it was not so, and I knew it
would not be so. The words, “Sweet lovely roses,” were
ever since a sort of refrain to ^ my thoughts of Colette.

We went for a three days’ honeymoon (I could not
spare more from work) to the Cat and Fiddle on the
moors above Buxton. It was bitterly cold and the water in
my jug was frozen in the morning. But the bleak moors
suited our mood. They were stark, but gave a sense of
vast freedom. We spent our days in long walks and our
nights in an emotion that held all the pain of the world in
solution, but distilled from it an ecstasy that seemed al-
most more than human.

I did not know in the first days how serious was my love
for Colette. I had got used to thinking that all my serious
feelings were given to Ottoline. Colette was so muc

20

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

younger, so much less of a personage, so much more
capable of frivolous pleasures, that I could not believe in
my own feelings, and half supposed that I was having a
light affair with her. At Christmas I went to stay at Gar-
sington, where there was a large party. Ke)mes was there,
and read the marriage service over two dogs, ending,
“Whom man hath joined, let not dog put asunder.” L3dton
Strachey was there and read us the manuscript of Eminent
Victorians. Katherine Mansfield and Middleton Muny
were also there. I had just met them before, but it was at
this time that I got to know her well. I do not know
whether my impression of her was just, but it was quite
different from other people’s. Her talk was marvellous,
much better than her writing, especially when she was tell-
ing of things that she was going to write, but when she
spoke about people she was envious, dark, and full of
alarming penetration in discovering what they least wished
known and whatever was bad in their characteristics.*
She hated Ottolme because Murry did not. It had become
clear to me that I must get over tiie feeling that I had had
for Ottoline, as she no longer returned it sufficiently to
give me any happiness. I listened to aU that Katherine
Mansfield had to say against her; in the end I believed
very little of it, but I had become able to think of Ottoline
as a Mend ratW than a lover. After this I saw no more of
Katherine, but was able to allow my feeling for Colette
free scope.

The time during which I listened to Katherine was a
time of dangerous transition. The War had brought me to
the verge of utter cynicism, and I was having the greatest
difficulty in believing that anything at all was worth doing.
Sometimes I would have fits of such despair as to spend a
number of successive days sitting completely idle in my
chair with no occupation except to read Ecclesiastes occ^
sionally. But at the end of this time the spring came, and
I found myself free of the doubts and hesitations that had

* See also my letter to Lady Ottolme on pp. 57-59.

The First War

21

troubled me in relation to Colette. At the height of my
winter despair, however, I had found one thing to do,
which turned out as useless as everything else, but
seemed to me at the moment not without value. America
being still neutral, I wrote an open letter to President
Wilson, appealing to Mm to save the world. In tMs letter
I said:

Sir,

You have an opportunity of performing a signal ser-
vice to mankind, surpassing even the service of Abra-
ham Lincoln, great as that was. It is in your power to
bring the war to an end by a just peace, which shall do
all that could possibly be done to allay the fear of new
wars in the near future. It is not yet too late to save
European civilization from destruction; but it may be •
too late if the war is allowed to continue for the fur-
ther two or three years with which our militarists
threaten us.

The military situation has now developed to the
point where the ultimate issue is clear, in its broad
outlines, to all who are capable of thought. It must be
obvious to the authorities in all the belligerent coun-
tries that no victory for either side is possible. In
Europe, the Germans have the advantage; outside
Europe, and at sea, the Allies have the advantage.
Neither side is able to win such a crushing victory as
to compel the other to sue for peace. The war u^cts
untold injuries upon the nations, but not such injuries
as to make a continuance of fighting impossible. It is
evident that however the war may be prolonged, nego-
tiations win ultimately have to take place on the basis
of what win be substantially the present balance of
gains and losses, and will result in terms not very dif-
ferent from those which might be obtained now. The
German Government has recognized this fact, and has
expressed its willingness for peace on terms which
ought to be regarded at least as affording a b^is for
discussion, since they concede the points wMch m-
volve the honour of the Allies. The Allied Govern-
ments have not had the courage to acknowledge pu

22

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

licly what they cannot deny in private, that the hope
of a sweeping victory is one which can now scarcely
be entertained. For want of this courage, they are pre-
pared to involve Europe in the horrors of a continu-
ance of the war, possibly for another two or three
years. This situation is intolerable to every humane
man. You, Sir, can put an end to it. Your power con-
stitutes an opportunity and a responsibility; and from
your previous actions I feel confident that you will
use your power with a degree of wisdom and humanity
rarely to be found among statesmen.

The harm which has already been done in this war
is immeasurable. Not only have millions of valuable
lives been lost, not only have an even greater number
of men been maimed or shattered in health, but the
whole standard of civilization has been lowered. Fear
has invaded men’s inmost being, and with fear has
come the feracltf that always attends it. Hatred has
become the rule of life, and injury to others is more
desired than benefit to oumelves. The hopes of peace-
ful progress in which our earlier years were passed are
dead, and can never be revived. Terror and savagery
have become the very air we breathe. The liberties
which our ancestors won by centuries of struggle were
sacrificed in a day, and all the nations are regimented
to the one ghastly end of mutual destruction.

But all this is as nothing in comparison with what
the future has in store for us if the war continues as
long as the announcements of some of our leading
men would make us expect. As the stress increases,
and weariness of the war makes average men more
restive, the severity of repression has to be continually
augmented. In aU the belligerent countries, soldiers
who are wounded or home on leave express an utter
loathing of the trenches, a despair of ever achiering
a military decision, and a terrible longing for peace.
Our militarists have successfully opposed the granting
of votes to soldiers; yet in all the countries an attempt
is made to persuade the civilian population that war-
weariness is confined to the enemy soldiers. The daily
toll of young lives destroyed becomes a horror almost
too terrible to be borne; yet everywhere, advocacy of

r/;c First War

23

peace is rebuked as treachery to the soldiers, though
the soldiers above all men desire peace. Everywhere,
friends of peace are met with the diabolical argument
that the brave men who have died must not have shed
their blood in vain. And so every impulse of mercy to-
wards the soldiers who are still living is dried up and
withered by a false and barren loyalty to those who
are past our help. Even the men hitherto retained for
making munitions, for dock labour, and for other pur-
poses essential to the prosecution of the war, are grad-
ually being drafted into the armies and replaced by
women, with the sinister threat of coloured labour in
the background. There is a very real danger that, if
nothing is done to check the fury of national passion,
European civilization as we have known it will perish
as completely as it perished when Rome fell before the
Barbarians.

It may be thought strange that public opinion should
appear to support all that is being done by the author-
ities for the prosecution of the war. But this appear-
ance is very largely deceptive. The continuance of the
war is actively advocated by influential persons, and
by the Press, which is everywhere under the control of
the Government. In other sections of Society feeling is
quite different from that expressed by the newspapers,
but public opinion remains silent and uninformed,
since those who might give guidance are subject to
such severe penalties that few dare to protest openly,
and those few cannot obtain a wide publicity. From
considerable personal experience, reinforced by all
that I can learn from others, I believe that the desire
for peace is almost universal, not only among the
soldiers, but throughout the wage-earning classes, and
especially in industrial districts, in spite of high wages
and steady employment. If a plebiscite of the nation
were taken on the question whether negotiations should
be initiated, I am confident that an overwhelming
majority would be in favour of this course, and that
the same is true of France, Germany, and Austria-
Hungary.

Such acquiescence as there is in continued hostilities
is due entirely to fear. Every nation believes that its

24

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

enemies were the^aggressors, and may make war again
in a few years unless they are utterly defeated. Ihe
United States Government has the power, not only to
compel the European Governments to make peace,
but also to reassure the populations by making itself
the guarantor of the peace. Such action, even if it were
resented hy the Governments, would be hailed with
joy by the populations. If the German Government, as
now seems likely, would not only restore conquered
territory, but also give its adherence to the League to
Enforce Peace or some similar method of settling dis-
putes without war, fear would be allayed, and it is al-
most certain that an offer of mediation from you
would give rise to an irresistible movement in favour
of negotiations. But the deadlock is such that no near
end to the' war is likely except through the mediation
of an outside Power, and such mediation can only
come from you.

Some may ask by what right I address you. I have
no formal title; I am not any part of the machinerj' of
government I speak only because I must; because
others, who should have remembered civilization and
human brotherhood, have allowed themselves to be
swept away by national passion; because I am com-
pelled by their apostacy to speak in the name of reason
and mercy, lest it should be thought that no-one in
Europe remembers the work which Europe has done
and ought still to do for mankind. It is to the Euro-
pean races, in Europe and out of it, that the world
owes most of what it possesses in thought, in science,
in art, in ideals of government, in hope for the future.
If they are allowed to destroy each other in futile car-
nage, something will be lost which is more precious
than diplomatic prestige, incomparably more vduable
than a sterile victory which leaves the victors them-
selves perishing. Like the rest of my countrjmeri I
have desired ardently the victory of the Alhes; like
them, I have suffered when victory has been dela5'ed.
But I remember always that Europe has common tasfe
to fulfill; that a war among European nations is in
essence a civil war; that the ill which we think of our
enemies they equally think of us; and that itris difficult

The First War

25

in time of war for a belligerent to see facts trul5%
Above all, I see that none of the issues in the war are
as important as peace; the harm done by a peace
which does not concede all that we desire is as noth-
ing in comparison to the harm done by the continu-
ance of the fighting. While all who have power in
Europe speak for what they falsely believe to be the
interests of their separate nations, I am compelled by
a profound conviction to speak for all the nations in
the name of Europe. In the name of Europe I appeal
to you to bring us peace.

The censorship in those days made it difficult to transmit
a document of this sort, but Helen Dudley’s sister Kath-
erine, who had been visiting her, undertook to take it
back with her to America. She found an ingenious method
of concealing it, and duly delivefed it to a committee of
American paci&ts through whom it was published in
almost every newspaper in America. As wilt be seen in this
account, I thought, as most people did at that time, that
the War could not end in a victory for either party. This
would no doubt have been true if America had remained
neutraL

From the middle of 1916 until I went to prison in
May 1918, I was very busy indeed with the affairs of the
No Conscription Fellowship. My times with Colette were
such as could be snatched from pacifist work, and were
largely connected with the work itself. Qififord Allen
would be periodically let out of prison for a few days, to
be court-martialled again as soon as it became clear that
he still refused to obey military orders. We used to go
together to his courts-martial.

When the Kerensky Revolution came, a great meeting
of sympathizers with it was held in Leeds. I spoke at ffih
meeting, and Colette and her husband were at it. We
travelled up in the train with Ramsay MacDonald, who
spent the time telling long stories of pawky Scotch humour
so dun that it was almost impossible to be awme when
the point had been reached. It was decided at Leeds o

26

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

attempt to form organizations in the various districts of
England and Scotland with a view to promoting workers’
and soldiers’ councils on the Russian model. In London a
meeting for this purpose was held at the Brotherhood
Church in Southgate Road. Patriotic newspapers distrib-
uted leaflets in all the neighbouring public houses (the
district is a very poor one) saying that we were in commu-
nication with the Germans and signalled to their aeroplanes
as to where to drop bombs. This made us somewhat
unpopular in the neighbourhood, and a mob pres-
ently besieged the chinch. Most of us believed that resis-
tance would be either wdcked or unwise, since some of us
were complete non-resisters, and otiiers realized that we
were too few to resist the whole surrounding slum popula-
tion. A few people, among them Francis Meynell, at-
tempted resistance, and I remember his returning from the
door with his face streaming with blood. The mob burst in
led by a few officers; all except the officers were more or
less drunk. The fiercest were viragos who used wooden
boards full of rusty nails. An attempt was made by the
officers to induce the women among us to retire first so
that they might deal as they thought fit with the pacifist
men, whom they supposed to be all cowards. Mrs, Snow-
den behaved on this occasion in a very admirable manner.
She refused point-blank to leave the haU imless the men
were allowed to leave at the same time. The other women
present agreed with her. This rather upset the officers in
charge of the roughs, as they did not particularly wish to
assault women. But by this time the mob had its blood up,
and pandemonium broke loose. Everybody had to escape
as best he could while the police looked on calnfly. Two
of the drunken viragos began to attack me with their
boards full of nails. While I was wondering how one de-
fended oneself against this type of attack, one of the ladies
among us went up to the police and suggested that they ,
should defend me. The police, however, merely shmgg^ ,
their shoulders. “But he is an eminent philosopher,” said i
the lady, and the police stiU shrugged. “But he is famous i

The First War

27

all over the world as a man of learning,” she continued.
The police remained umnoved. “But he is the brother of
an earl,” she finally cried. At this, the police rushed to my
assistance. They were, however, too late to be of any
service, and I owe my life to a young woman whom I did
not know, who interposed herself between me and the
viragos long enough for me to make my escape. She, I am
happy to say, was not attacked. But quite a number of
people, including several women, had their clothes tom
off their backs as' they left the building. Colette was pres-
ent on this occasion, but there was a heaving mob between
me and her, and I was unable to reach her until we were
both outside. We went home together in a mood of deep
dejection.

The clergyman to whom the Brotherhood Church be-
longed was a pacifist of remarkable courage. In spite of
this experience, he invited me on a subsequent occasion to
^ve an address in his church. On this occasion, however,
the mob set fire to the pulpit and the address was not
delivered. These were the only occasions on which I came
across personal violence; all my other meetings were un-
disturbed. But such is the power of Press propaganda that
my non-pacifist friends came to me and said: “Why do
you go on trying to address meetings when aU of them are
broken up by the mob?”

By this time my relations with the Government had
become very bad. In 1916, I wrote a leaflet* which was
published by the No Conscription Fellowship about ^ a
conscientious objector who had been sentenced to impris-
onment in defiance of the conscience clause. The leaflet
appeared without my name on it, and I found rather to
my surprise, that those who distributed it were sent to
prison. I therefore wrote to The Times to state that I was
the author of it. I was prosecuted at the Mansion House
before the Lord Mayor, and made a long speech m my
own defence. On this occasion I was fined £100. 1 ui

» The full text -will be found on pp. 74-76.

28 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

not pay the sum, so that my goods at Cambridge were sold
to a sufficient amount to realize the fine. Kind friends,
however, bought them in and gave them back to me, so
that I felt my protest had been somewhat futile. At Trin-
ity, meanwhile, all the yoimger Fellows had obtained com-
missions, and the older men naturally wished to do their
bit. They therefore deprived me of my lectureship. When
the younger men came back at the end of the War I was
invited to return, but by this time I had no longer any
wish to do so.

Munition workers, oddly enough, tended to be pacifists.
My speeches to munition workers in South Wales, all of
wMch were inaccurately reported by detectives, caused
the War Office to issue an order that I should not be
allowed in any prohibited area.* The prohibited areas
were those into which it was particularly desired that no
spies should penetrate. They included the whole sea-coast.
Representations induced the War Office to state that they
did not suppose me to be a German spy, but nevertheless
I was not allowed to go an3nvhere near the sea for fear I
should signal to the submarines. At the moment when the
order was issued I had gone up to London for the day
from Bosham in Sussex, where I was staying with the
Eliots. I had to get them to bring up my brush and comb
and tooth-brush, because the Government objected to my
fetching them myself. But for these various compliments
on the part of the Government, I should have thrown iip
pacifist work, as I had become persuaded that it was en-
tirely futile. Perceiving, however, that the Government
thought otherwise, I supposed I might be mistaken, and
continued. Apart from the question whether I was doing
any good, I could not well stop when fear of consequences
might have seemed to be my motive.

At the time, however, of the crime for which I went to
prison, I had finally decided that there was nothing fur-

* See my statement concerning my meeting with General Cockerill
of the War Office on pp. 87-90.

The First War

29

ther to be done, and my brother had caused the Govern-
ment to know my decision. There was a little weekly
newspaper called The Tribunal, issued by the No Con-
scription Fellowship, and I used to write weekly articles
for it. After I had ceased to be editor, the new editor,
being ill one week, asked me at the last moment to write
the weekly article. I did so, and in it I said that American
soldiers would be employed as strike-breakers in England,
an occupation to which they were accustomed when in
their own country.* This statement was supported by a
Senate Report which I quoted. I was sentenced for this
to six months’ imprisonment. All this, however, was by no
means unpleasant. It kept my self-respect alive, and gave
me something to think about less painful than the univer-
sal destruction. By the intervention of Arthur Balfour, I
was placed in the first division, so that while in prison I
was able to read and write as much as I liked, provided I
did no pacifist propaganda. I found prison in many ways
quite agreeable. I had no engagements, no difficult deci-
sions to make, no fear of callers, no interruptions to my
work. I read enormously; I wrote a book. Introduction to
Mathematical Philosophy, a semi-popular version of The
Principles of Mathematics, and began the work for Analy-
sis of Mind. I was rather interested in my feUow-prisoners,
who seemed to me m no way morally inferior to the rest of
the population, though they were on the whole slightly
below the usual level of intelligence, as was^ shown by
their having been caught. For anybody not in the ffist
division, especially for a person accustomed to reading
and writing, prison is a severe and terrible pumshment;
but for me, thanks to Arthur Balfom, this was not so.^ I
owe hitn gratitude for his intervention although I was bit-
terly opposed to all his policies. I was much cheered, on
my arrival, by the warder at the gate, who had to t^e
particulars about me. He asked my religion and I
“agnostic.” He asked how to spell it, and remarked with

^ The full text is reproduced on pp. 99—101.

30 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

a sigh: “Well, there are many religions, but I suppose
they all worship the same God.” This remark kept, me
cheerful for about a week. One time, when I was reading
Strachey’s Eminent Victorians, I laughed so loud that the
warder came round to stop me, saying I must remember
that prison was a place of punishment. On another occa-
sion Arthur Waley, the translator of Chinese poetry, sent
me a translated poem that he had not yet published called
“The Red Cockatoo.”* It is as follows:

Sent as a present from Annam —

A red cockatoo.

Coloured like the peach-tree blossom.

Speaking with the speech of men.

And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.

They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.

I had visits once a week, always of course in the presence
of a warder, but nevertheless very cheering. Ottoline and
Colette used to come alternately, bringing two other peo-
ple with them. I discovered a method of smuggling out
letters by enclosing them in the uncut pages of books. I
could not, of course, explain the method in the presence
of the warder, so I practised it first by giving Ottoline the
Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, and
telling her that it was more interesting than it seeped.
Before I invented this device, I found another by which I
could incorporate love-letters to Colette into letters which
were read by the Governor of the prison. I professed to
be reading French Revolutionary Memoirs, and to have
discovered letters from the Girondin Buzot to Madame
Roland. I concocted letters in French, saying that I had
copied them out of a book. His circumstances were suffi-
ciently similar to my own to make it possible to give

* Now included in Chinese Poems (London, George Allen & Unwin
Ltd.).

The First War

31

verisimilitude to these letters. In any case, I suspect that
the Governor did not know French, but would not confess
ignorance.

The prison was full of Germans, some of them very
intelligent. When I once published a review of a book
about Kant, several of them came up to me and argued
warmly about my interpretation of that philosopher. Dur-
ing part of my time, Litvinov was in the same prison, but
I was not allowed any opportunity of speaking to him,
though I used to see him in the distance.

Some of my moods in prison are illustrated by the fol-
lowing extracts from letters to my brother, all of which
had to be such . as to be passed by the Governor of the
prison:

(May 6, 1918) . . . Life here is just like life on an
Ocean Liner; one is cooped up with a number of aver-
age human beings, unable to escape except into one’s
own state-room. I see no sign that they are worse than
the average, except that they probably have less will-
power, if one can judge by their faces, which is all I
have to go by. That applies to debtors chiefly. The
only real hardship of life here ' is not seeing one’s
friends. It was a great delight seeing you the other day.
Next time you come, I hope you will bring tw^o others
— I thin'k you and Elizabeth both have the list. I am
anxious to see as much of my friends as possible. You
seemed to thin'k I should grow indMerent on that point
but I am certain you were wrong. Seeing^ the people I
am fond of is not a thing I should grow indifferent t(h
though thinking of them is a great satisfaction. I find
it comforting to go over in my mind all sorts of occa-
sions when things have been to my liking.

Impatience and lack of tobacco do not as yet trou e
me as much as I expected, but no doubt they v^I
later. The holiday from responsibility is really dehgnt-
ful, so delightful that it almost outweighs everythng
else. Here I have not a care in the world: the rest to
nerves and will is heavenly. One is free from
tuxing question: What more might I be doing? Is there

32

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

, any effective action that I haven’t thought of? Have I
a right to let the whole thing go and return to philos-
ophy? Here, I have to let the whole thing go, which is
far more restful than choosing to let it go and doubting
if one’s choice- is justified. Prison has some of the ad-
vantages of the Catholic Church

(May 27, 1918) . . . Tell Lady Otfoline I have been
reading the two books on the Amazon: Tomlinson I
loved; Bates bores me while I am Tending him, but
leaves pictures in my mind which I am glad of after-
wards. Tomlinson owes much to Heart of Darkness.
The contrast with Bates is remarkable: one sees how
our generation, in comparison, is a little mad, be-
cause it has allowed itself glimpses of the truth, and
the truth is spectral, insane, ghastly: the more men see
of it, the less mental health they retain. The Victorians
(dear souls) were sane and successful because they
never came anywhere near truth. But for my part I
would rather be mad with truth than sane with lies, . . .

(June 10, 1918) . . . Being here in these conditions is
not as disagreeable as the time I spent as attache at
the Paris Embassy, and not in the same world of hor-
ror as the year and a half I spent at a crammer’s. The
young men there were almost all going into the Army
or the Church, so they were at a much lower morhl
level than the average — .

(July 8, 1918) ... I am not fretting at all, on the con-
trary. At first I thought a good deal about my owm con-
cerns, but not (I think ) more than was reasonable;
now I hardly ever think about them, as I have done all
I can. I read a great deal, and think about philosophy
quite fruitfully. It is odd and irrational, but the fact is
my spirits depend on the military situation as much as
anything: when the Allies do well I feel cheerful, when
they do badly, I worry over all sorts of things that
seem quite remote from the War. . . .

(July 22, 1918) ... I have been reading about Mira-
beau. His death is amusing. As he was dying he said

The First War

33

“Ah! si feiisse vecu, que j’eitsse donne de chagrin a ce
Pitt!’’ which I prefer to Pitt’s words (except in Dizzy’s
version). They were not however quite the last words
Mirabeau uttered. He went on; “11 ne reste plus qi^'une
chose a faire: c’est de se parfumer, de se couronner de
fieurs et de s’environner de musique, afin d’entrer agrea-
blement dans ce sommeil dont on ne se reveille plus.
Legrain, qu’on se prepare a. me raser, d faire ma toi-
lette toute entiere.’’ Then, turning to a friend who was
sobbing, “Eh Men! etes-vous content, mon cher con-
noisseur en belles marts?” At last, hearing some guns
fired, “Sont-ce dejd les funerailles d'Achille?” After
that, apparently, he held his tongue, thinking, I sup-
pose, that any further remark would be an anti-climax.
He illustrates the thesis I was maintaining to you last
Wednesday, that all Musual . energy is inspired by an
unusual degree of vanity. TTiere is just one other mo-
tive;* love of power. Philip II of Spain and Sidney
Webb of Grosvenor Road are not remarkable for
vanity.

There was only one thing that made me mind being in
prison, and that was connected with Colette. Exactly a
year after I had fallen in loVe with her, she fell in love
with someone else, thou^ she did not wish it to make
any difference in her relations with me. I, however, was
bitterly jealous.* I had the worst opinion of him, not
wholly without reason. We had violent quarrels, and
things were never again quite the same between us.
While I was in prison, I was' tormented by jealousy the
whole time, and driven wild by the sense of impotence,
did not think myself justified in feeling jealousy, wmch
regarded as an abominable emotion, but none the less i
consumed me. When I first had occasion to feel it, it k^
me awake almost the whole of every night for a fortmgh ,

* Later I recognized the fact that my feeling

alonsy, but also; as is often the case m so dee^y sen .

, I felt ours to be, from a sense both of

ippened so often and in so many ways dunng these y ,

aiy defiled.

34

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

and at the end I only got sleep by getting a doctor to pre-
scribe sleeping-drau^ts. I recognize now that the emotion
was wholly foolish, and that Colette’s feeling for me was
sufficiently serious to persist through any number of minor
affairs. But I suspect that the philosophical attitude which
I am now able to maintain in such matters is due less to
philosophy than to physiological decay. The fact was, of
course, that she was very young, and could not live con-
tinually in the atmosphere of high seriousness in which
I lived in those days. But although I know this now, I
allowed jealousy to lead me to denounce her with great
violence, with the natural result that her feelings towards
me were considerably chiUed. We remained lovers until
1920, but we never recaptured the perfection of the ffist
year.

I came out of prison in September 1918, when it was
already clear that the War was ending. During the last
weeks, in common with most other people, I based my
hopes upon Woodrow Wilson. The end of the War was so
swift and dramatic that no-one had time to adjust feelings
to changed circmnstances. I learned on the morning of
November 11th, a few horns in advance of the general
public, that the Armistice was coming. I went out into
the street, and told a Belgian soldier, who said: “Tiens,
c’est chic!" I went into a tobacconist’s and told the lady
who served me. “I am ^ad of that,” she said, “because
now we shall be able to get rid of the interned Germans.”
At eleven o’clock, when the Armistice was announced, I
was in Tottenham Court Road. Within two minutes every-
body in all the shops and offices had come into the street.
They commandeered the buses, and made them go where
they liked. I saw a man and woman, complete strangers to
each other, meet in the middle of the road and kiss as
they passed.

I^ate into the night I stayed alone in the streets, watch-
ing the temper of the crowd, as I had done in the August
days four years before. The crowd was frivolous still, and
had learned nothing during the period of horror, except to
. snatch at pleasure more recklessly than before. I felt

The First War

35

strangely solitary amid the rejoicings, like a ghost dropped
by accident from some other planet. True, I rejoiced also,
but I could find nothing in common between my rejoicing
and that of the crowd. Throughout my life I have longed
to feel that oneness with large bodies of human beings
that is experienced by the members of enthusiastic crowds.
The longing has often been strong enough to lead me into
self-deception. I have imaged myself in turn a Liberal,
a Socialist, or a Pacifist, but I have never been any of
these things, in any profound sense. Always the sceptical
intellect, when I have most wished it silent, has whispered
doubts to me, has cut me ofi from the facile enthusiasms
of others, and has transported me into a desolate solitude.
During the War, while I worked with Quakers, non-
resisters, and socialists, while I was willing to accept the
unpopularity and the inconvenience belonging to unpopu-
lar opinions, I would tell the Quakers that I thou^t many
wars in history had been justified, and the socialists that
I dreaded the tyranny of the State. They would look
askance at me, and while continuing to accept my help
would feel that I was not one of them. Underlying all
occupations and aU pleasures I have felt since early youth
the pain of solitude, I have escaped it most nearly in
moments of love, yet even there, on reflection, I have found
that the escape depended partly upon illusion.* I have
known no woman to whom the claims of intellect were as
absolute as they are to me, and wherever intellect inter-
vened, I have found that the sympathy I sought in love
was apt to faU. What Spinoza calls “the intellectual love
of God” has seemed to me the best thing to live by, but I
have not had even the somewhat abstract God that
Spinoza allowed himself to whom to attach my intellectual
love. I have loved a ghost, and in loving a ghost my mrnost

self hanSelf become^ spectral.' T-have therefore bun^ it

deeper and deeper beneath layers of cheerfulness, affec-
tion, and joy of life. But my most profound feelmgs have
remained always solitary and have found in human things

* This and what follows is no longer true (1967).

36

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

no companionship, "nie sea, the stars, the night wind in
waste places, mean more to me than even the human
beings I love best, and I am conscious that human affec-
; jtion is to me at bottom an attempt to escape from the vain
■■^search for God.

The War of 1914—1918 changed everything for me. I
ceased to be academic and took to writing a new kind of
books. I changed my whole conception of human nature,
I became for the first time deeply convinced that Puritan-
ism does not make for human Jhappiness... Through the
spectacle of death I acquired a new love for what is living.
I became convinced that most human beings are possessed
by a profound unhappiness venting itself in destructive
rages, and that only through the diffusion of instinctive joy
can a good world be brought into being. I saw that re-
formers and reactionaries alike in our present world have
become distorted by cruelties. I grew suspicious of all
purposes demanding stem discipline. Being in opposition
to the whole purpose of the community, and finding all
the everyday virtues used as means for the slaughter of
Germans, I experienced great difficulty in not becoming
a complete Antinomian. But I was saved from this by the
profound compassion which I felt for the sorrows of the
world. I lost old friends and made new ones. I came to
know some few people whom I could deeply admire, first
among whom I should place E. D. Morel, I got to know
him in the first days of the War, and saw him frequently
until he and I were in prison. He had single-minded devo-
tion to the tmthful presentation of facts. Having begun
by exposing the iniquities of the Belgians in the Congo, he
had difficulty in accepting the myth of “gallant little
Belgium.” Having studied minutely the diplomacy of the
French and Sir Edward Grey in regard to Morocco, he
could not view the Germans as the sole smners. With
un tiring energy and immense ability in the face of all the
obstacles of propaganda and censorship, he did what he
could to enlighten the British nation as to the true pur-
poses for which the Government was driving the young
men to the shambles. More than any other opponent of

The First War

37

the War, he was attacked by politicians and the press, and
.. of those who had heard his name ninety-nine per cent
believed him to be in the pay of the Kaiser. At last he was
sent to prison for the purely technical offence of having
employed Miss Sidgwick, instead of the post, for the pur-
pose of sending a letter and some documents to Romain
RoUand. He was not, like me, in the first division, and he
suffered an injury to his health from which he never
recovered. In spite of all this, his courage never failed. He
often stayed up late at night to comfort Ramsay Mac-
Donald, who frequently got “cold feet,” but when Mac-
Donald came to form a government, he could not think of
including anyone so tainted with pro-Germanism as
Morel. Morel felt his ingratitude deeply, and shortly after-
wards died of heart disease, acquired from the hardships
of prison life.

There were some among the Quakers whom I admired
very greatly, in spite of a very different outlook. I might
take as tj^pical of these the treasurer of the No Conscrip-
tion Fellowship, Mr. Grubb. He was, when I first knew
Im, a man of seventy, very quiet, very averse from pub-
licity, and very immovable. He took what came without
any visible sign of emotion. He acted on behalf of the
young men in prison with a complete absence of even the
faintest trace of self-seeking. When he and a number of
others were being prosecuted for a pacifist publication,
my brother was in court listening to his cross-examination.
My brother, though not a pacifist, was impressed by the
man’s character and integrity. He was sitting next to Mat-
thews, the Public Prosecutor, who was a friend of his.
When the Public Prosecutor sat down at the end of his
cross-examination of Mr. Grubb, my brother whispered
to him: “Really, Matthews, the role of Torquemada does
not suit you!” My brother’s remark so angered Matthews
that he would never speak to him again.

One of the most curious incidents of the War, so far as
I was concerned, was a summons to the War OfBce to be
kindly reasoned with. Several Red Tabs, with^ the most
charming manners and the most friendly attitude, be-

38

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

sought me to acquire a sense of humour, for they held
that no-one with a sense of humoxir would give utterance
to unpopular opinions. They failed, however,, and after-
wards I regretted that I had not replied that; I held my
-sides with laughter every morning as I read the casualty
figures.

When- the War was over, I saw that all I had done had
been totally useless except to myself. I had not saved a
single life or shortened the War by a minute. I had not
succeeded in doing anything to diminish the bitterness
which caused the Treaty of Versailles. But at any rate I
had not been an accomplice in the crime of all the belliger-
ent nations, and for myself I had acquired a new philoso-
phy and a new youth. I had got rid of the don and the
Puritan. I had learned an understanding of instinctive
processes which I had hot possessed before, and I had
acquired a certain poise from having stood so long alone.
In the days of the Armistice men had high hopes of Wil-
son. Other men found their inspiration in Bolshevik Rus-
sia. But when I foxmd that neither of these sources of
optimism was available for me, I was nevertheless able not
to despair. It is my deliberate expectation that the worst
is to come,* but I do not on that account cease to believe
that men and women will izl timately learn the simple
secret of instinctive joy. '

LETTERS

Biihlstr. 28

Gottingen

Germany

[c. June or July,' 1914]

My dear Mr. Russell,

At present I . am studying here in Gottingen, foUoRing
your advice. I anii hearing a course on the Theory of

^ This passage was written is 1931.

Groups with Landau, a course on Differential Equations
with Hilbert (I know it has precious little to do with
Philosophy but I wanted to hear Hilbert), and three
courses with Husserl, one on Kant’s ethical writings, one
on the principles of Ethics, and the seminary on Phenom-
enology. I must confess that the intellectual contortions
through which one must go before one finds oneself in the
true Phenomenolo^cal attitude are utterly beyond me.
The applications of Phenomenology to Mathematics, and
the claims of Husserl that no adequate account can be
given of the foundations of Mathematics without- starting
out from Phenomenology seem to me absurd.

Symbolic logic stands in little favor in Gottingen. As
usuhl, the Mathematicians will have nothing to do with
anything so philosophical as logic, whfie the philosophers
. have -nothing- to do with anythiig so. mathematical as
Sobols, For this reason, I have not done much ori^al
woffe this term: it is disheartening to try to do original
work where you know that not a person with whom you
talk about it will understand a word you say.

During the Pfingsten holidays, I called on Frege up at
Brunnshaupten in Mecklenburg, where he spends his holi-
days. I had several interesting talks with him about your
work.

A topic which has interested me of late is the question
whether one can obtain a simpler set of postulates for
Geometry by taking the convex solid & relations between
convex solids as indefinable, and defining points as you
define instants. I have obtained five or six sets of defini-
tions of the fundamental Geometrical concepts in this
manner, but I am utterly at a loss for a method to simplify
the postulates of Geometry in this manner: e.g. the tri-
angle-transversal postulate offers almost insuperable diffi-
culties if one attempts to simplify it by resolving it into a
proposition about arbitrary convex surfaces.

I thank you very much for your interest in my article &
discovery. I have some material now that might go with
my work on sensation-intensities to make a new article: I

40 The -Autobiography of Bertrand Russell '

would like to ask you what I should do with it. It is an
extension of my work on time to polyadicxelations havine
some of the properties of series: for example, to the “be-
tween” relation among the -points of a given straight
line. . . .*

I herewith send you my reprints, and offer my apologies
to you for not having sent them sooner. The reason is this;
I sent all of my articles destined for distribution in Amer-
ica to father, with directions to “sow them where they
would take root.” Father , probably imagined that I had
sent your copies to you direct

I am very ^ad to hear that you had such an enjoyable
time with us, and I shall certainly spend next year studying
under you in Cambridge. I am just be ginnin g to realise
what my work under you there has ment [ric] for me.

Yours very respectfully,
Norbert Wiener

To the London Nation for August 15, 1914
Sir:

. Against the vast majority of my countrymen, even at
this moment, in the name of humanity and civilization, I
protest against onr share in the destruction of Germany.

A month ago Europe was a peaceful comity of nations;
if an Englishman killed a German, he was hanged. Now,
if an FTiglishman kills a German, or if a German kills an
Englishman, he is a patriot, who has deserved well of his
country. We scan the newspapers vrith greedy eyes for
news of slau^ter, and rejoice when we read of innocent
young men, blindly obedient to the word of command,
mown down in thousands by the machine-guns of Liege.
Those who saw the London crowds, during the nights
leading up to the Declaration of War saw a whole popula-
tion, hitherto peaceable and humane, precipitated m a
few days down the steep slope to primitive barbarism.

* The central part of this letter has been omitted as being too techni-
cal for general inter^t-

The First War

41

letting loose, in a moment, the instincts of hatred and
blood lust against which the whole fabric of society has
been raised. “Patriots” in all countries acclaim this brutal
orgy as a noble determination to vindicate the right; rea-
son and mercy are swept away in one great flood of
hatred; dim abstractions of unimaginable wickedness —
Germany to us and the French, Russia to the Germans —
conceal the simple fact that the enemy are men, like our-
selves, neither better nor worse — men who love their
homes and the sunshine, and all the simple pleasures of
common lives; men now mad with terror m the thougjit of
their wives, their sisters, their children, exposed, with our
help, to the tender mercies of the conquering Cossack.

And all this madness, aU this rage, aU this flaming
death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought
about because a set of ofiScial gentlemen, living luxurious
lives, mostly stupid, and aU without imagination or heart,
have chosen that it should occur rather than that any one
of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his coun-
try’s pride. No literary tragedy can approach the futile
horror of the White Paper. The diplomatists, seeing from
the first the inevitable end, mostly wishing to avoid it, yet
drifted from hour to hour of the swift crisis, restrained by
punctilio from making or accepting the small concessions
that might have saved the world, hurried on at last by
blind fear to loose the armies for the work of mutud
butchery.

And behind the diplomatists, dimly heard in the offlcial
documents, stand vast forces of national greed and na-
tional hatred — atavis tic instincts, harmful to mankind
at its present leve^^ut transmitted from savage and half-
animal ancestors, concentrated and directed by Govern-
ments and the Press, fostered by the upper class as a
distraction from social discontent, artificially nourished by
the sinister influence of the makers of armaments, encour-
aged by a whole foul literature of “glory,” and by every
text-book of history with which the minds of children are
polluted.

En^and, no more than other nations which participate

42 The Autobiography of Bertrand Rmseli

in this war, can be absolved either as regards its national
passions or as regards its diplomacy.

For the past ten years, imder the fostering care of the
Government and a portion of the Press, a hatred of Ger-
many has been cultivated and a fear of the German Na\y.
I do not suggest that Germany has been guiltless; I do not
deny that the crimes of Germany have been greater than
our own. But I do say that whatever defensive measures
were necessary should have been taken in a spirit of calm
foresi^t, not in a wholly needless turmoil of panic and
suspicion. It is this deliberately created panic and suspi-
cion titat produced the public opinion by which our parti-
cipation in the war has been rendered possible.

Our diplomacy, also, has not been guiltless. Secret ar-
rangements, concealed from Parliament and even (at
first) from almost all the Cabinet, created, in spite of
reiterated denials, an obligation suddenly revealed when
the war fever had reached the point which rendered public
opinion tolerant of the discovery that the lives of many,
and the livelihood of all, had been pledged by one man’s
irresponsible decisions. Yet, though France knew our
obligations. Sir E. Grey refused, down to the last moment,
to inform Germany of the conditions of our neutrality or
of our intervention. On August 1st he reports as follows a
conversation with the German Ambassador (No. 123) :

“He asked me whether, if Germany gave a promise not
to violate Belgian neutrafity, we would engage to remain
neutral. I replied that I could not say that; our hands were
stiU free, and we were considering what our attitude
should be. All I could say was that our attitude would be
determined largely by public opinion here, and that the
neutrality of Bel^um would appeal very strongly to public
opinion here. I did not think that we could give a pronuse
of neutrality on that condition alone. The Ambassador
pressed me as to whether I could not formulate conditions
on which we would remain neutral. He even suggested
that the integrity of France and her colonies mght be
guaranteed. I said I felt obliged to refuse defimtely any

The First War

43

promise to remain neutral on similar terms, and I could
only say that we must keep our hands free.”

It thus appears that the neutrality of Bel^um, the in-
tegrity of France and her colonies, and the naval defence
of the northern and western coasts of France, were all
mere pretexts. If Germany had agreed to our demands in
all these respects, we should still not have promised
neutrality.

I cannot resist the conclusion that the Government has
failed in its duty to the nation by not revealing long-
standing arrangements with the French, until, at the last
moment, it made them the basis of an appeal to honor;
that it has failed in its duty to Europe by not declaring its
attitude at the beginning of the crisis; and that it has failed
in its duty to humanity by not informing Germany of con-
ditions which would insure its nonparticipation in a war
which, whatever its outcome, must cause untold hardship
and the loss of many thousands of our bravest and noblest
citizens.

Yours, etc.,

August 12, 1914 Bertrand Russell

From Lord Morley’^ Flowermead

Princes Road
Wimbledon Park, S.W.
Aug. 7, 16 [14]

Dear Mr. Russell:

Thank you for telling me that you and I are in accord
on this breakdown of right and political wisdom. The
approval of a man like you is of real value, and I value it
sincerely.

Yours

M

* I wrote to congratulate liirn on having resigned from the Govern*
ment on the outbreak of war.

44

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Cote Bani;

Westbury-on-Trym

Bristol

Dear Bertie:

Friday 7th Aug. 1914

It was very kind of you to write. I feel overwhelmed by
the horror of the whole thing. As you know I have always
regarded Grey as one of the most wicked and dangerous
criminals that has ever disgraced civilization, but it is
awful that a liberal Cabinet should have been parties to
engineering a war to destroy Teutonic civilization in fa-
vour of Servians and the Russian autocracy. I pray that
the economic disturbance may be so great as to compel
peace fairly soon, but it looks. as bad as can be.

Yours fraternally,

C. P. Sanger

Esher House
Esher, Surrey
19/8/14

Dear Russell:

I have just read first your admirable letter in the Nation
and then the White Book, with special attention to the
sequence of events which culminated in the passage you
quote from No. 123. As a result I must express to you
not only my entire agreement with yom: sentiments (wMch
are those of every civilized man) but also with your argu-
ment. It seems to me clear on his own evidence that Sir
E. Grey must bear a large share of the catastrophe,
whether he acted as he did consciously or stupidly. He
steadily refused to give Germany any assurance of neutral-
ity on any conditions, until he produced a belief that he
meant England to fi^t, and Germany thereupon ran
“amok.” But the evidence shows that she was willing to
bid high for our neutrality.

First (No. 85) she promised the integrity of France
proper and of Belgium (tho leaving her neutrality contin-

The First War

45

gent). When Grey said that wasn’t enough (No. 101) and
demanded a pledge about Belgian neutrality (No. 114),
the German Secretary of State explained, stupidly but
apparently honestly, what the difficulty was (No. 122),
and said he must consult the Chancellor and Kaiser, This
the papers have represented as a refusal to give the pledge,
whereas it is obvious that Lichnowsky’s conversation with
Grey (No. 123) next day was the answer. And I don’t
see how anything more could have been conceded. Belgian
neutrality and the integrity of France and her colonies,
with a hint of acceptance of any conditions Grey would
impose if only he woidd state them. Of course, that would
have reduced the war with France to a farce, and meant
presumably that France would not be (seriously) at-
tacked at all, but only contained. One gets the impression
throughout that Germany really wanted to fi^t Russia
and had to take on France because of the system of alli-
ances. Also that Russia had been goading Austria into
desperation, (No. 118 s.f.), was willing to fight, (109,
139), was lying, or suspected of lying by Germany (112,
121, 139 p. 72 top of 144). It is sickening to think that
this deluge of blood has been let loose aU in order that the
tyranny of the Tsar shall be extended over aU the world.
As regards the question of Grey’s good faith, have you
noted that the abstract of the despatches ^ves no hint of
the important contents of No. 123? That was presumably
the reason why none of the papers at first noticed it. As
for thQ' Nation Editor’s reply to you, he simply distorts
the time order. Lichnowsky’s offer to respect Bel^an neu-
trality came after Grey’s inquiry and answered it. Grey’s
answers seem mere “fencing,” and if he had really wanted
to be neutral he would surely have said to L’s. offers “are
these firm pledges?” But he did not respond at aU.

However it is no use crying over spilt milk, and not
much to consider as yet how European civilization can be
saved; I fear this horror will go on long enough to ruin it
completely. But I suspect that not much will be left of the
potentates, statesmen and diplomats who have brought

46

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

about this catastrophy, when the suffering millions have
borne it- 6 months.

Ever sincerely yours,

F. C. S. Schiller

To and from J. L. Hammond 5 Sept. 1914

Dear Hammond:

I am glad Norman Angell is replying and am very satis-
fied to be displaced by him.

As regards Belgium, there are some questions I should
like to ask you, not in a controversial spirit, but because I
wish, ff possible, to continue to feel some degree of politi-
cal respect for the Nation, with which in the past I have
been in close agreement.

I. Were the Nation ignorant of the fact, known to all
who took any interest in military matters, that the Ger-
mans, for many years past, had made no secret of their
intention to attack France through Belgium in the next
war?

n. Did the Nation in former years regard the violation
of Bel^um, if it should occur, as a just ground for war
with Germany?

ni. If so, why did they never give the slightest hint of
this opinion, or ask the Government to make this view
clear to Germany? If the object was to save Belgium, this
was. an obvious duty.

IV. Why did the Nation in the past protest against
Continental entanglements, when the alleged duty of pro-
tecting Belgium already involved all the trouble that could
arise from an alliance with France and Russia?

It seems to me that in the past, as in the present, the
(policy of the Nation has been sentimental, in the pnse that
;it has refused to face facts which went against its policy.
I do not see, at any rate, how it can be absolved from the
charge of either having been thoughtless in the past, or
being hysterical now. , .

If there is an answer, I should be very grateful for it.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

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47

Oatfield

19 Oct. '1914 .

Dear Russell:

Your letter — accusing my handwriting of a certain
obscurity — was a great shock, but less than it would have
been had I not already received a similar intimation, less
tactfully conveyed, from the printers. I had therefore al-
ready addressed myself to the painful task of reform, with
the result that you see.

My letter was in answer to one from you asking why if
the Nation thou^t we should fight over Belgium it had
not let its readers know that this was its opinion, and why
if it took this view, it objected to foreign entanglements.
(I send your letter as the simplest way.) First of all I
must ask you — in justice to the Nation — to distinguish
between the Nation and me. I have had no responsibility
for the paper’s line on foreign policy (or on Armaments)
with which I have not associated myself. I agreed with the
N. entirely on Persia. I am therefore not quite the right
person to answer your questions; but I think the Nation
could clear itself of inconsistency.

1. I don’t know whether the Nation was aware of this
or not. (Personally I was not. I always thought Germany
rqight develop designs on Belgium and Holland and in the
last article on Foreign Policy that I wrote in the Speaker
I said we could not look idly on if she attacked them.)

2. The Nation drew attention to our obligation to Bel-
gium in April 1912, March 1913, and the week before
the war.

3. I imaginp, that they did not call upon the Govern-
ment to impress this on Germany because they imagined
that it was generally known that an English Government
would consider the obligation binding.

4. The Nation argued that the entente with France and
Russia made a general war more probable, and that if we
were quite independent we could more easUy protect Bel-
gium. “Germany would not violate the neutrality of Bel-
^um for the sake of some small military advantage if she
might otherwise reckon on our neutrality” (March ^ 1,
1913). They may have been wrong, their general cnti-

48

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

cisms of Grey may have been right or wrong and their
idea that it was possible to bnild up an Anglo-French-
German entente may have been impracticable, but there
seems to be no inconsistency in working for that policy for
some years and in thinking that it is Germany that has
wrecked it. Massingham’s view is that Germany 1) would
make no concessions during the last fortni^t for the
Peace of Europe 2) insisted bn invading Bel^um.

If you say that you think the Nation has not allowed
enou^ for the warlike forces in Germany in the past I
agree. I think that has been the mistake of all the Peace
people. In his book — in many respects admirable — on
The War of Steel and Gold BraUsford was entirely scepti-
cal, predicting that there would never be a great war in
Europe again.

Yours,

J. L. Hammond
[1914]

Thank you so much for the flowers. They are a great
comfort to me and your letter also — I have read it many
times. It was terrible the other evening — yet if we had
not seen each other it might have been infinitely more
terrible — I might have come to feel that I could never see
you again. That is all past now — I do understand
how it is with you and I feel more than ever that a^pro-
foxmd and lasting friendship will be possible — I hope
very soon — as soon as I get back my strength. Hothing
that has happened makes any difference finally — it was
and stiU is of the very best. .

Goodbye now and if one may speak of peace m this
distracted world — peace be with you.

H.

To Geo. Turner, Esq. Trinity College

Cambridge

26 April 1915

Dear Sir: . , ,

I am sorry to say I caimot renew my subscription to the
Cambridge Liberal Association, and I do not wash any

50

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

scarcely anything of Germany until the war came on. And
I am by heredity inclined to take the soldier’s view. So I
approached this question from quite a different stand-
point to what you did. I was all the more interested in
knowing what you thought, and tried to get my ideas
straight and just by yours.

From my own experience of Government action and of
military attitudes I should say that it was almost impos-
sible for any one outside the inner Government circle to
get a true view at the first start off. The crisis came so
suddenly to the outside public. Underneath the surface it
had been brewing up but we knew nothing of it — or very
little. Then suddenly it breaks and we have to form the
best opinion we can. And as regards the military attitude
I know from experience how frightfully dangerous it is
when you have the physical means of enforcing your own
point of view — how apt you are to disregard any one
else’s. I have seen that with military commanders on cmn-
paign and probably I have been pretty bad myself. This it
seems to me is what Germany is suffering from. She cer-
tainly had accumulated tremendous power and this made
her utterly inconsiderate of the feelings and rights of
others. And what I take it we have to drive into her is the
elementary fact that it does not pay to disregard these
rights and feelings — that she must regard.them.

Yours very sincerely,

Francis Younghusband

A specimen typical of many:

Ryde

Sept. 20 ’15

It may be perfectly true, and happily so, that you are
not a Fellow of Trinity, — but your best friends, if you
have any, would not deny thdt you are a silly ass. And no
only a sUly ass, — but a mean-spirited and lying <me a
that, — for you have the sublime impertinence and un-
tmthfulness to talk about “no doubt atrocities have oc-

The First War

51

curred on both sides.” Yon, together with yonr friends (?)
Pigou, Marshall, Walter G. Bell, A. R. W^er, Conybeare,
etc. know perfectly well that to charge the British Army
with atrocities is a pernicious lie of which only an En^h
Boche traitor could be guilty, — and your paltry attempt
to introduce the Russians stamps you for what you are!

Yours,

J. Bull

The occasion of the following letter was my taking the
chair for Shaw at a meeting to discuss the War.

From G. B. Shaw 10 Adelphi Terrace.

[London] W.C.

16th October, 1915

Dear Bertrand Russell:

You had better talk it over with the Webbs. As far as I
am concerned, do exactly as the spirit moves you. If you
wish to reserve your fire, it is quite easy to open the meet-
ing by simply stating that it is a Fabian meeting, and that
the business of the Fabian Society is, within hmnan limits,
the dispassionate investigation of social problems, and the
search for remedies for social evils; that war is a social
problem like other social problems and needs such investi-
gation side by .side with recruiting demonstrations and
patriotic revivals; that the subject of this evening’s lecture
is the psychological side of war; and that you have plea-
sure in calling upon etc etc etc etc.

I am certainly not going to be obviously politic, con-
ciliatory and bland. I mean to get listened to, and to make
the lecture a success; and I also mean to encourage the
audience if I can; but I shaiy do it with as much ostensible
defiance of the ligh ting as possible. The important thing
is that the meeting should be good humoured and plucky;
for what is really the matter with everybody is funk. In the
right key one can say anything: in the wrong key, noth-
ing: the only delicate part of the job is the establishment
of the key.

52 Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

I have no objection on earth to the lines you indicate;
and before or after my speech is the same to me. Our job
is to make people serious about the war. It is the mon-
strous triviality of the damned thing, and the vulgar
frivolity of what we imagine to be patriotism, that gets at
my temper.

Yours ever,

G.B.S.

P.S. As this will not be delivered until late afternoon (if
then) I send it to Webb’s.

The occasion of the following letter was my pamphlet on
the policy of the Entente, in which I criticized Gilbert Mur-
ray’s defence of Grey.

To Gilbert Murray 34, Russell Chambers

Bury Street, W.C.

28th December 1915

Dear Gilbert:

Thank you for your letter. I am very sorry I gave a
wrong impression about your connection with the F.O. I
certainly thought you had had more to do with them.

I agree with all you say about the future. I have no wish
to quarrel with those who stand for liberal ideas, however
I may disagree about the war. I thought it necessary to
answer you, just as you thought it necessary to write your
pamphlet, but I did not mean that there should be any-
thing offensive in my answer; if there was, I am sorry. I
feel our friendship still lives in the eternal world, whatever
may happen to it here and now. And I too can say God
bless you.

Yours ever,

B. Russell

The following letter should have been included in Volume
I had it been available at the time of the publication of

The First War

53

Volume I. As it was not, I add it here to other letters
jrom George Santayana.

Queen’s Acre
Windsor
Feb. 8, 1912

Dear Russell:

Many thanks for your message, which came this morn-
ing in a letter from your brother. I am going to spend
Sunday with him at Telegraph House, but expect to go up
to Cambridge on Monday or Tuesday of next week, and
count on seeing you. Meantime I have a proposal to make,
or rather to renew, to you on behalf of Harvard College.
Would it be possible for you to go there next year, from
October 1912 to June 1913, in the capacity of professor
of philosophy? Royce is to be taking a holiday, I shall be
away, and Palmer will be there only for the first half of the
academic year. Perry, Miinsterberg, and two or three
young psychologists will be alone on hand. What they have
in mind is that you should give a course — three hours a
week, of which one may be delegated to the assistant
which would be provided for you, to read papers, etc. —
in lo^c, and what we call a “Seminary” or “Seminar” in
anything you liked. It would also be possible for you to
give some more popular lectures if you liked, eiAer at
Harvard, or at the Lowell Institute in Boston. For the
latter there are separate fees, and the salary of a professor
is usually $4000 ( £800). We hope you will consider this
proposal favourably, as there is no one whom the younger
school of philosophers in America are more eager to learn
of than of you. You would bring new standards of preci-
sion and independence of thought which would open their
eyes, and probably have the greatest influence on the ris-
ing generation of professional philosophers in that country.

There is no particular urgency in receiving your an-
swer, so that you needn’t write to me at all, but wait until
I see you next week, unless your decision is absolutely

54

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

clear and unalterable, in which case you might send me
line to Telegraph House. My permanent address is
c/o Brown Shipley & Co.

123 Pall Mail, S.W.

Yours sincerely,
G. Santayana

P .S. I didn’t mean to decline your kmd offer to put me up,
when I go to Cambridge, but as I am going in the middle
of the week, I don’t know whether it would be equally
convenient for you to do so.

Oxford, May 5th [1915]

I read this about “war babies” in a Spanish newspaper:
“Kitchener, in creating an army, has created love. Ihis is
a great change in a country where only marriage was
known before.”

G. Santayana

[Dec. ’17]

The situation is certainly bad from a military point of
view, or for those who are angry because the war interferes
with their private or political machinations. It may last a
long time yet; or else be renewed after a mock peace. But,
looking at it all calmly, like a philosopher, I find nothing
to be pessimistic about. When I go to Sandford to lunch,
which is often, it does my heart good to see so many
freshly ploughed fields: England is becoming a cultivated
cormtry, instead of being a land of moors and fens, like
barbarous North Germany. That alone seems to me more
than a compensation for all losses: it is setting the founda-
tions right. As for Russia, I rather like Lenin, (not that
fatuous Kerensky!); he has an ideal he is wdlfing to fight
for, and it is a profoundly anti-German ideal. If he re-
mains in power, he may yet have to fight the Germans, and
it will be with very poisonous gas indeed. Besides, I think
their plans at Berlin have profoimdly miscarried, and that

The First War

55

the Prassian educational-industrial-militaiy domination
we were threatened with is nndemained at home. Military
victory would not now do, because the more peoples they
rope in, the more explosives they will be exploding under
their own establishment.

As for deaths and loss of capital, I don’t much care.
The young men kUled would grow older if they lived, and
then they would be good for nothing; and after being good
for nothing for a number of years they would die of catarrh
or a bad kidney or the halter or old age — and would that
be less horrible? I am willing, almost glad, that the
world should be poorer; I only wish the population too
could become more sparse; and I am perfectly willing to
live on a bread-ticket and a lodging-ticket and be known
only by a number instead of a baptismal name, provided
all this made an end of living on lies, and really cleared
the political air. But I am afraid the catastrophe won’t be
great enough for that, and that some false arrangement
will be patched up — in spite of Lenin — so that we shall
be very much as we were before. People are not intelligent.
It is very unreasonable to expect them to be so, and that
is a fate my philosophy reconciled me to long ago. How
else could I have lived for forty years in America?

All this won’t interest you, but since it is written I will
let it go.

[G. Santayana]

To Ottoline Morrell [Cambridge]

1915

Did you see in to-day’s Morning Post a letter from an
American, dated “Ritz Hotel,” expressing his horrified be-
wilderment to find, in New College Chapel, a tablet in-
scribed “Pro Patria,” on which are being inscribed the
names of New College men who have been killed in the
war, among the rest three Germans! He expressed his
horror to the verger, who replied “They died for their
country. I knew' them — they were very fine men.” It is

. 56

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

creditable to New College. The worthy American thinks it
necessary to give us a lesson in hov/ to be patriots.

“Elizabeth” [my sister-in-law] expressed regret at the
fact that her 5 German nephews in the war are all still
alive. She is a true patriot. The American would like her.

I could come to you Tues. & Wed. 15th and 16th, if it
suited you. I should like to see [D. H.] Lawrence

[Cambridge]

Sunday evg.

[Postmark 10 May T5]

I am feeling the wei^t of the war much more since I
came back here — one is made so terribly aware of the
waste when one is here. And Rupert Brooke’s death
brought it home to me. It is deadly to be here now, with
aU the usual life stopped. There will be other generations
— yet I keep fearing that something of civilization will be
lost for good, as something was lost when Greece perished
in just' this way. Strange how one values civilization —
more than aU one’s friends or anything — the slow
achievement of men emerging from the brute — it seems
the ultimate thing one lives for. I don’t live for human
happiness, but for some kind of struggling emergence of
mind. And here, at most times, that is being helped on —
and -what has been done is given to new generations, who
travel on from where we have stopped. And nov/ it is all
arrested, and no one knows if it will start again at any-
thing like the point where it stopped. And aU the elderly
apostates are overjoyed.

34 Russell Chambers
Wed. night

[Postmark 27 My. ’15]

I am only just realizing how Cambridge oppressed me.
[ feel far more alive here, and far better able to face what-
wer horrors the time may bring. Cambridge has ceased to

The First War

57

be a borne and a refuge to me since the war began. I find
it unspeakably painful being thought a traitor Every
casual meeting in the Court makes me quiver with sensi-
tive apprehension. One ought to be rrtore hardened.

My Dearest, forgive me that I have been so homd
lately. But ready 1 have had ratlier a bad time, and I have
been haunted by horrors, and I didn’t want to speak all
that was in my mind until it had subsided, because it was
excessive and mad. So I got stiff and dull.

Friday

[Postmark 11 Ju ’15]

I think I will make friends v/ith the No-Conscription
people. The U.D.C. is too mild and troubled with irrele-
vandes. It will be aU right after the war, but not now. I
wish good people were not so mild. The non-rcsistance
people I know here are so Sunday-schooly — one feels
they don’t know the volcanic side of human nature, they
have little humour, no intensity of will, nothing of what
makes men effective. They would never have denounced
the Pharisees or turned out the money-changers. How
passionately I long that one could break through the
prison walls in one’s own nature. I feel now-a-days so
much as if some great force for good were imprisoned
within me by scepticism and cynicism and lack of faith.
But those who have no such restraint always seem igno-
rant and a httle foolish. It all makes one feel very lonely.

I can’t make head or tail of Lawrence’s philosophy. I
dread talking to him about it. It is not sympathetic to me.

^ July lyii

Lawrence took up my time from morning till 10:30, s
1 TOuldn’t write yesterday. We had a terrific argumei
but not a dis^trous one. He attacks me for various thins
that I don t feel to blame about — chiefly, in effect, ft
having a scientific temper and a respect for fact, I wi

58

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

send you his written comments on my syllabus. I shall bs
glad to know what you think of them. He took me to see a
Russian Jew, Kotilianslcy, and [Middleton] Murry and
Mrs. Murry [Katherine Mansfield] - — they were all sittina
together in a bare office high up next door to the Holbora
Restaurant, with the windows shut, smoking Russian cig-
arettes without a moment’s intermission, idle and cynical.
I thought Murry beastly and the whole atmosphere of the
three dead and putrefying.

Then v/e went to the Zoo — the baboon gave me much
cynical satisfaction; he looked long and deliberately at
everybody, and then slowty showed his teeth and snarle4
with inconceivable hatred and disgust. Swift woidd have
loved iim. Then we v/ent up to Hampstead, to the Rad-
fords, where Mrs. Lawrence was staying. I was dead tired
after the first hour, as we began arguing at once. I , told
Lawrence that I thought we ought to be independent of
each other, at any rate at first, and not try to start a school.
When he talks politics he seems to me so wild that I could
not formally work with him. I hope he won’t be hurt. He
did not seem to be, as I put it very carefully. He is un-
disciplined in thought, and mistakes his wishes for facts.
He is also muddleheaded. He says “facts” are quite unim-
portant, only “truths” matter. London is a “fact” not a
“truth.” But he wants London pulled down. I tried to
make him see that that would be absurd if London were
unimportant, but he kept reiterating that London doesn’t
really exist, and that he could easily make people see it
doesn’t, and then they would puU it down. He was so con-
fident of his pov/ers of persuasion that I challenged him
to come to Trafalgar Square at once and begin preaching.
That brought him to earth and he began to shuffle. Hb
attitude is a little mad and not quite honest, or at least
very muddled. He has not learnt the lesson of individual
, impotence. And he regards all my attempts to make him
^"knowledge facts as mere timidity, lack of courage to
think boldly, self-indulgence in pessimism. 'VVffien one gets
a glimmer of the facts into his head, as I did at last, he
^ts discouraged, and says he will go to the South Sea

The First War

59

Islands, and bask in the sun with 6 native wives. He is
tough work. The trouble with him is a tendency to mad
exaggeration.

July 1915
Tuesday

Yes, the day Lawrence was with me was horrid. I got
filled with despair, and just counting the moments tiU it
was ended. Partly that was due to liver, but not wholly.
Lawrence is very Uke Shelley — just as fine, but with a
similar impatience of fact. The revolution he hopes for is
just like Shelley’s prophecy of banded anarchs fleeing
while the people celebrate a feast of love. His psychology
of people is amazingly good up to a point, but at a certain
point he gets misled by love of violent colouring.

Friday evg. I dined with my Harvard pupil, [T. S.]
Eliot, and his bride. I expected her to be terrible, from his
mysteriousness; but she was not so bad. She is li^t, a little
vulgar, adventurous, full of life — an artist I think he said,
but I should have thought her an actress. He is exquisite
and listless; she says she married him to stimulate him, but
finds she can’t do it. Obviously he married in order to be
stimulated. I think she will soon be tired of him. She
refuses to go to America to see his people, for fear of sub-
marines. He is ashamed of his marriage' and very grateful
if one is kind to her. He is the Miss Sands* type of
American.

Hatch

Kingsley Green

Haslemere

Thurs. mg.

[Postmark 9 Sp. ’15]

Afy Darling:

I was very glad of your letter this morning — such a
dear letter. I wish I could avoid getting unhappy. I can, if

* Miss Sands was a highly cultivated New Englander, a painter and a
friend of Henry James and Logan Pearsall Smith.

60 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

I have interests away from you and do not stay on and on
in the family atmosphere — but otherwise the feeling of
being a mere superfluous ghost,' looking on but not partici-
pating, grows too strong to be borne. By spending some
days in town each week it will be all right. Ike Lady* has
been explaining the situation to me, and is going to do so
further today, as she is taking me out for a picnic, while
Mrs. Waterlow [her sister] goes to town; She says — and
I believe her — that she was unguarded with my brother
at first, because she looked upon him as safely married,
and therefore suitable as a lover. Suddenly, without con-
sulting her, he wrote and said he was getting divorced. It
took her breath away, and rather flattered her; she drifted,
said nothing definite, but allowed him tacitly to assume
everything. Now she is feeling very worried, because the
inexorable moment is coming when his divorce will be
absolute and she will have to decide. Her objections to
him are the following;

(n) He sleeps with 7 dogs on his bed. She couldn’t
sleep a wink in such circumstances. f

(h) He reads Kipling aloud.

(c) He loves Telegraph House, which is hideous.

I daresay other objections might be found if one
searched long enough, they are all three, well chosen to
appeal to me. She is a flatterer, and has evidently set
herself to the task’of getting me to be not against her if she
breaks with him. But it is an impossible task. I am too
fond of my brother, and shall mind his suffering too much,
to forgive her inwardly even if she has a perfectly good
case’ She says she is still in great uncertainty, but I don t
think she wfll marry him. She would be delighted to go on
having him for a lover, but I feel sure he will never agree
to that.

* “Elizabeth,” my brother’s third wife.

1 1 told her about Josephine’s dog biting Napoleon. What Emperore
have borne, she may. (Josephine’s dog bit Napoieon in the calf on their
wedding-night.)

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61

I must finish, as this must be posted in a moment.

Don’t worry about me. It will be all right as long as I
don’t let my thou^ts get too concentrated on what I can’t
have. I loved the children’s picnic, because for once I was
not a ghost. I can’t enter into the family life when you are
present, partly because you absorb my attention, partly
because in your presence I am always paralyzed with ter-
ror, stiff and awkward from the sense of your criticism. I
know that some things I do or don’t do annoy you, for
reasons I don’t understand, and it makes it impossible for
me to be natural before you, though sometimes it makes
me exaggerate the things you hate. But when I am not
tired, I can surmoimt aU those things. Owing to being con-
strained and frightened when I am with you, my wtality
doesn’t last long at Garsington, and when it is gone I
become defenceless against thoughts I want to keep at a
distance.

Thursday night
[Postmark London,

29 October ’15]

My Darling:

I was glad to get your letter. I had begun to feel anx-
ious. I am glad Lawrence was so wonderful. I have no
doubt he is right to go, but I couldn’t desert England. I
simply cannot bear to think that England is entering on its
autumn of life — it is too much anguish. I will not believe
it, and I will believe there is health and vigour in the
nation somewhere. It is all hell now, and shame — but^ I
believe the very shame will in the end wake a new spirit.
The more England goes down and down, the more pro-
foundly I want to help, and the more I feel tied to England
for good or HI. I cannot write of other things, they seem
so' small in comparison.

Your

B.

62

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell *

Wednesday

[Postmark Nov. 10, ’15]

Eliot had a half holiday yesterday and got home at
3:30. It is quite fuimy how I have come to love him, as if
he were my son. . He is becoming much more of a man.
He has a profound and quite unselfish devotion to his wife,
and she is really very fond of him, but has impulses of
cruelty to him from time to time. It is a Dostojevsky type
of cruelty, not a straightforward everyday kind. I am every
day getting things more right between them, but I can’t
let them alone at present, and of course I myself get very
much interested. She is a person who lives on a knife-edge,
and will end as a cr imin al or a saint — I don’t know which
yet. She has a perfect capacity for both.

Wed. [1915]

My Darling:

I don’t know what has come over me lately but I have
sunk again into the state of lethargy that I have had at
intervals since the war began. I am sure I ought to live
differently, but I have utterly lost all will-power. I want
someone to take me in hand and order me about, telling
me where to live and what to do and leaving me no self-
dkection at all. I have never felt quite like that before. It
is all mental fatigue I am sure, but it is very intense, and
it leaves me with no interest in anything, and not enough
energy to get into a better frame of mind by my own
efforts. In fact I should fight against anything that might
be suggested to do me good. My impiilse is just to sit
still and brood.

I can’t do much till my lectures are over but that won t
be long now. If I could get some one like Desmond [Mac-
Carthy] to come to the country with me then and make
me walk a lot, I should get better. But everyone is busy
and I haven’t the energy to arrange things. I don’t do any
work. I shall have to get to work for Harvard some time
but the thought of work is a nightmare. I am sure some-
thing ought to be done or I shall go to pieces.

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63

Irene [Cooper Willis] has just been here scolding me
about Helen [Dudley] — someone told her the whole
story lately — that hasn’t made me any more cheerful
than I was before. Sense of Sin is one of the things that
trouble me at these times. The state of the world is at the
bottom of it I think, and the terrible feeling of impotence,
I thought I had got over it but it has come back worse
than ever. Can you thinlc of anything that would help me?
I should be grateful if you could. My existence just now is
really too dreadful.

I know now that it is just an illness and it doesn’t any
longer make me critical of you or of anybody. It is my
will that is gone. I have used it too much and it has
snapped.

You have enough burdens already — but if you know
anyone who could look after me for a while and order me
about it would make a difference.

Your

B.

Sat. [1916]

I enclose a letter from Captain White. You will see
that he feels the same sort of hostility or antagonism to
me that Lawrence feels — I think it is a feeling that seems
to exist in most of the people with whom I feel in sym-
pathy on the spiritual side — probably the very same
thing which has prevented you from caring for me as much
as you thought you would at first. I wish you could find
out and tell me what it is. It makes one feel very isolated.
People with whom I have intellectual sympathy hardly
ever have any spiritual life, or at any rate have very
little; and the others seem to find the intellectual side of
me unbearable. You will think I am lapsing into morbid-
ness again, but that is not so; I simply want^ to get to the
bottom of it so as to understand it; if 1 can’t get over it,
it makes it difficult to achieve much.

I had told White I was troubled by the fact that my

64

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

audiences grow, and that people who ou^t to be made
uncomfortable by my lectures* axe not— notably Uis.
Acland [whose husband was in the Government], who sits
enjoying herself, with no feeling that what I say is a con-
demnation of the Government. I thought after my last
lecture I would point the moral practically.

I feel I know very little of what you have been thinking
and feeling lately. I have been so busy that my letters
have been duU, so I can't complain. But it will be a relief
to see you and to find out something of what has been
going on in you. Ever since the time when I was at Gar-
sington last I have been quite happy as far as personal
things are concerned. Do you remember that at the time
when you were seeing Vittozf I wrote a lot of staS about
Theory of Knowledge, which Wittgenstein criticized with
the greatest severity? His criticism, tho’ I don’t think you
realized it at the time, was an event of first-rate importance
in my life, and affected everything I have done since, I
saw he was right, and I saw that I could not hope ever
again to do fundamental work in philosophy. My im-
pulse was shattered, like a wave dashed to pieces again^ a
breakwater. I became filled with utter despair,* and tried
to turn to 5'ou for consolation. But you were occupied
with Vittoz and could not ^ve me time. So I toot to casual
philandering, and that increased my despair. I had^ to
produce lectures for America, but I took a metaphysical
subject flitbnngh I was and am comunced that all funda-
mental work in philosophy is logical. My reason w^ that
Wittgenstein persuaded me that what wanted doiag in
logic was too difficult for me. So there was no really vitri
satisfaction of my piulosophical impulse in that worl^ and
philosophy lost its hold on me. That was due to Witt^n-
stein more than to the war, Wffiat the war has done is to
^ve me a hew and less difficult ambition, which seems to

* These lectares afterwards became Principles of Social Recorstru.-
tion.

t A Swiss physician who treated her.

* I soon got over this mood.

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65

me quite as good as the old one. My lectures have per-
suaded me that there is a possible life and activity in the
new ambition. So I want to work quietly, and I feel more
at peace as regards work than I have ever done since
Wittgenstein’s onslaught.

40, Museum Street
London, W.C.

November 29th, 1915

Dear Sir:

I notice with very great interest in the current number
of The Cambridge Magazine that you are planning to
give a Course of Lectures on “The Principles of Social
Reconstruction.”

If it is your intention that the Lectures should subse-
quently be published in book form, I hope we may have
the pleasure of issuing them for you.

We enclose a prospectus of Towards a Lasting Settle-
ment, a volume in which we know you are interested. We
hope to publish the book on December 6th.

Yours faithfully,
Stanley Unwin

This was the beginning of my connection with Allen &
Unwin.

From T. S. Eliot

Tuesday
[Jan. 1916]

Dear Bertie:

This is wonderfully kind of you — really the last straw
(so to speak) of generosity. I am very sorry you have to
come back — and Vivien says you have been an angel to
her — but of course I shall jump at the opportunity with
the utmost gratitude. I am sure you have done everything
possible and handled her in the very best way — better
than I — I often wonder how things woidd have turned

Aulobiography of Bertrand Russell

out but for you — I believe we shall owe her life to you
even. ’

I shall take the 10:30, and look forward to a talk vTith
you before you go. Ivlrs. Saich* is expecting you. She has
made me veiy comfortable here.

Affectionately,

Tom

4446 Westminster Place
May 23rd, 1916

Dear Mr. Russell:

Your letter relative to a cablegram sent us, was received
some little time ago. I write now to thank you for the
affection that inspired it. It was natural you should feel as
you did with the awdul tragedy of the Sussex of such recent
occurrence. Mr. Eliot did not believe it possible that even
the Germans, (a synonym for all that is most frightful,)
wodd attack an American liner. It would be m^esdy
against their interest. Yet I am aware there is still a pos-
sibility of war between Germany and America. The more
we learn of German methods, open and secret, the greater
is the moral indignation of many Americans. I am glad all
our ancestors are English with a French ancestry far back
on one line. I am sending Tom copy of a letter written by
his Great-great-grandfather in 1811, giving an account of
his grandfather (one of them) who was bom about 1676
— in the county of Devon, England — Chastopbet
Pearse.

I am sure your influence in every way will confirm my
son in his choice of Philosophy as a life work. Professor
Wood speaks of his thesis as being of exceptional value.
I had hoped he would seek a University appointment next

- * The charwoman at my flat. She said I was “a very percentric

man.” Once when the gasman came and turned out to be a sociau-w
she said “he talked just like a gentleman.” She had supposed o y

hfo^ot wis rSdt;eded a hoh'day. Eliot at first could not leave
London, so I went first with her to Torquay, and Ehot replaced me ane
a few days.

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67

year. If he does not I shall feel regret. I have absolute faith
in his Philosophy but not in the vers libres.

Tom is very grateful to you for your sympathy and
kindness. This gratitude I share.

Sincerely yours,
Charlotte C. Eliot*

To Lucy Martin DonneUyf 34 Russell Chambers

Bury St., W.C.

10 Feb. 1916

My dear Lucy:

I was glad to hear from you at Kyoto — as for Conti-
nents, there are so far only 3 in which I have written to
you — it is your plain duty to go to Africa & Australia in
order to complete your collection.

I do hope you will manage to come to England by the
Siberian Railway. It would be a great pleasure to see you,
& I am sure that I could make you sympathize with the
point of view which I & most of my friends take about the
war.

You needn’t have been afraid about my lectures. Helen
[Flexner] wrote me quite a serious remonstrance, which
amused me. I should have thought she would have known
by this time that social caution in the expression of opin-
ion is not my strong point. If she had known Christ before
he delivered the Sermon on the Mount she would have
begged him to keep silence for fear of injuring his social
position in Nazareth. People who count in the world are
oblivious of such things. As a matter of fact, my lectures
are a great success — they are a raUying-ground for the
intellectuals, who are coming daily more to my way of
thinking not only as regards the war but also as regards
general politics. Adi sorts of literary & artistic people who
formerly despised politics are being driven to action, as
they were in France by the Dreyfus case. In the long run.

* T. S. EUol’s mother.

t Professor of English at Bryn Mawr College.

68

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

their action will have a profound effect. It is primarily to
them that I am speaking. — I have given up writing on
the war because I have said my say & there is nothing new
to say. — My ambitions are more vast & less immediate
than my friends’ ambitions for me. I don’t care for the
applause one gets by saying what others are thinking; I
want actually to change people’s thoughts. Power over
people’s minds is the main personal desire of my life; k
this sort of power is not acquired by saying popular things.
In philosophy, when I was young, my views were as
unpopular & strange as they could be; yet I have had a
very great measure of success. Now I have started on a
new career, & if I live & keep my faculties, I shall probably
be equally successful. Harvard has invited me to give a
course of lectures 12 months hence on the - sort of things
I am now lecturing on, & I have agreed to go. As soon as
the war is over, people here will want just that sort of
thing. When you once understand what my ambitions are,
you wiU see that I go the ri^t way about to realize them.
In any large tmdertaking, there are rough times to go
through, & of course success may not come till after one is
dead — but those things don’t matter if one is in earnest.
I have something important to say on the philosophy of
hfe & politics, something appropriate to the times. Peo-
ple’s general outlook here has changed with extraor^ary
rapidity during the last 10 years; their beliefs are disinte-
grated, & they want a new doctrine. But those who viU
mould the future won’t listen to anything that retains old
superstitions & conventions. There is a sharp cleavage be-
tween old & young; after a gradual development, I have
come down on the side of the yoimg. And because I am
on their side, I can contribute something of experience
which they are w illin g to respect when it is not merely
criticism. — Let me hear again soon — I am interested
by your impressions of the Far East.

Yrs affly,

,B. Russell

Have you read Romain RoUand’s Life of Michel An-
gelo? It is a w^onderful book.

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69

To Ottoline Morrell Sunday aft.

[Postmark London 30 Jan. T6]

I have read a good deal of Havelock Ellis on sex. It is
full of things that everyone ought to know, very scientific
and objective, most valuable and interesting. What a folly
it is the way people are kept in ignorance on sexual mat-
ters, even when they think they know everything. I think
almost all civilized people are in some way what would be
thought abnormal, and they suffer because they don’t
know that really ever so many people are just like them.
One so constantly hears of things going wrong when peo-
ple marry, merely through not knowing the sort of things
that are likely to happen, and through being afraid to talk
frankly. It seems clear to me that marriage ought to be
constituted by children, and relations not involving chil-
dren ought to be ignored by the law and treated as indif-
ferent by public opinion. It is only through children that
relations cease to be a purely private matter. The whole
traditional morality I am sure is superstitious. It is not true
that the very best things are more likely to come to those
who are very restrained — they either grow incapable of
letting themselves go, or when they do, they become too
violent and headlong. Do you agree?

Goodbye my darling. I am as happy as one can be in
these times, and very full of love. It will be a joy to see
you again if you come up.

Your

B.

Trin. CoU.

Feb. 27 1916

My Darling:

I believe I forgot to tell you I was coming here for the
weekend. I came to speak to the “Indian Majliss” a Club
of Indian students here. They were having their annual
dinner, about 100 of them, and they asked me to propose
the toast of “India.” Your friend Sarawadi (?) was there,

70

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

and spoke extraordinaiily welL They had asked me be-
cause of the line J have taken about the war — at least I
suppose so. But -wben I came to speak an odd sense of
responsibility came over me. I remembered that after all
I don’t want the Germans to win, and I don’t want India
to rebel at this moment. I said t^t if I were a native of
India I did not think I should desire a German victory.
This was received in dead silence, and subsequent
speeches said that was the only thing in my speech that
they disagreed with. Their nationalism was impressive.
They spoke of unity between Moslems and Hindoos, of
the oppressiveness of En^and, of sharp defeat as the only
way of checking tyrants. Many of them were able, very
earnest, quite civifeed. The man who spoke last was a
biolo^, full of passion for science, just going to return
to India. ‘T am going,” he said, “from this land of pros-
perity to the land of plague and famine, from this land of
freedom to the land- where if I am truthful I am disloyal,
if I am honest I am seditious; from this land of eniighten-
ment to the land of reli^ous bigotry, the land that I love,
my country. A man mtist be more than human to love
such a country; but those who would serve it have become
more than human.” 'Rdiat a waste to make such men
fight political battles! In a happier world, he would proV
ably discover preventives for cholera; as it is, his life vill
be full of strife and bitterness, resisting evil, not creating
good. All of them were fearless and thoughtful: most of
them were ver3’' bitter. Mixed in with it all was an odd
strain of imdergraduate fun and banter, jibes about the
relath'e merits of Oxford and Cambridge, and such talk as
amuses the English youth in quiet times. The mixture,
which was in each separate speech, was very cunous.

Tonight I meet them again, or some of them,^ and give
them my lecture on education, I am very glad indeed to
have got to know their point of vdew and their^character.
It must be appallingly tra^c to be civilised and educatea
and belong to such a country as India,
k Helen [Dudley] is coming to lunch. I hope I shall see

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71

Nicod; also Armstrong.^ Yesterday I lunched with Water-
lowt which was dull.

I spoke to the Indians for half an hour, entirely without
preparation or any scrap of notes. I believe I speak better
that way, more spontaneously and less monotonously.

Trinity College

Sunday evening 19 Mar. T6

My Darling:

The melancholy of this place now-a-days is beyond en-
durance — the Colleges are dead, except for a few In-
dians and a few pale pacifists and bloodthirsty old men
hobbling along victorious in the absence of youth. Soldiers
are billeted in the courts and drill on the grass; bellicose
parsons preach to them in stentorian tones from the steps
of the Hall. The town at night is plunged in a darkness
compared to which London is a blaze of light. Ail that one
has cared for is dead, at least for the present; and it is
hard to believe that it will ever revive. No one thinks
about learning or feels it of any importance. And from
the outer deadness my thoughts travel to the deadness in
myself — I look round my shelves at the books of mathe-
matics and philosophy that used to seem full of hope and
interest, and now leave me utterly cold. The work I have
done seems so little, so irrelevant to this world in which
we find we are living. And in everything except work I
have failed so utterly. All the hopes of five years ago come
before me like ghosts. I struggle to banish them from my
mind but I can’t All our happy times are in my memory,
though I know it is better not to think of them. I know I
must work and thtrik and learn to be interested in mental
things, but utter weariness overwhelms me in the thought.

* Amastrong was a man whom I came to know as an undergraduate
at Cambridge. He enlisted at the begjntuns ot the war, lost a leg .and
became a pacifist. ... j • .u

t Afterwards Sir Sidney. He was a nephew of Elizabeth, and in the
Foreign Office. We had many common friends at Cambridge.

72 The A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

It is no use to keep on running away from spectres. I must
let them catch me up and then face them. When ! have
learnt to work properly again, I shall feel more inward
independence, and things will be better. Ever since I knew
you, I have tried to get from you what one ought to get out
of oneself.

46 Gordon Square
Bloomsbury
Tuesday night
[1916]

My Darling:

I have not heard from you since the letter you wrote on
Friday, but as I only get my letters once a day now (when
I call for them, in the morning) it is not surprising.

I had a queer adventure today. Lloyd George was led
to think he might as well find out at &st hand about the
conscientious objectors, so he had Clifiord AUen and Miss
Marshall and me to lunch at his place near Reigate, fetch-
ing us and sending us back in his own motor. He was very
unsatisfactory, and I think only wanted' to exercise his
skill in trying to start a process of bargaining. Still, it was
worth something that he should see AUen and know the
actual man. It wUl make him more reluctant to have him
shot.

I feel convinced the men wiU have to suffer a good deal
before public opinion and Government wiU cease to wisn
to persecute them. I got the impression that LI. George
expects the w'ar to go on for a long time yet; also that he
thinks the whole situation very black. He seemed quite
heartless. Afterwards I saw Anderson [a Labour M.P.]
at the House: he is an oily humbug.

It is quite private about L.G. I suppose.

The first thing , that wants doing is to overhaul the
W'hole of the decisions of the Tribunals and have all con-
science cases reheard. No doubt a good many are cow-
ards: people are unspeakably cruel about cowardice

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73

some have gone mad, some have cxjmmitted suicide, and
people merely shrug their shoulders and remark that they
had no pluck. Nine-tenths of the human race are incredibly
hateful.

10 Adelphi Terrace, W.C.

18th April 1916

Dear Bertrand Russell:

Yeats wrote to me about Chappelow, enclosing a letter
from a lady, a cousin of his. But I really dont see what is
to be done. The Act has been passed; and he must either
serve or go through with his martyrdom. There is no
ground on which exemption can be demanded for him; he
seems to have just let things slide, like a child unable to
conceive that the law had anything to do with him per-
sonally, instead of appealing or taking advice. I have no
private influence; and exflu ence,. which I probably have,
would not help him.

His letter is not that of a man made of martyr-stuff. He
seems to be, like many literary people, helpless in practi-i^
cal affairs and the army is in some ways the very place forjl
him; for he will be trained to face the inevitable, and yett
have no responsibilities i He will be fed and clothed and''
exercised arid told what to do; and he will have unlimited
opportunities for thinking about other things. He wiU not
be asked to kill anybody for a year to come; and if he finds
his conscience insuperably averse, he can throw down his
arms and take his two years hard labor then if he must,
and be in much better condition for it. But by that time he
wiU either have been discharged as unfit for service or
else have realized that a man . living in society must act
according to the collective conscience under whatever pro-
test his individual conscience may impel him to make. I
think that is what we are bound to teU aU the pacific young
men who apply to us. Martyrdom is a matter for the
individual soul: you cant advise a man to undertake it.

I do not blame any intelligent man for trying to dodge

The Autobiography, of Bertrand Russell

&e ^ocioi^. boredom of soldiering if it can be dodged;
but Chappelow seems to have been too helpless to nTake
dodge it: he simply stood gaping in the
path of the steamroller. I am sorry for Mm; but I can only
advise him to serve. Can you suggest anything better?

Yours ever,

G. Bernakd Shaw

Postscript

It would hardly help him to say “I don’t mind being
bound by the conscience of England, . or by my own con-
science; but I don’t feel at home with the conscience of
Lord Northcliffe, Sir Edward Carson, and General Robert-
son, who naturally thinks there is nothing like leather.”
P.P.S.

Influence can work only in the direction of letting the
prisoner out after he is sentenced on some pretext or
other.

The following is the leaflet for which I, m common with
those who distributed it, was prosecuted:

TWO years’ hard labour for
REFUSING TO DISOBEY THE
DICTATES OF COT^SCJEl^CE

^ . This was the sentence passed on Ernest F. Everett, of
222, Denton’s Green Lane, St. Helens, by' a Court Martial
held on April 10th [1916].

Everett was a teacher at St. Helens, and had been op-
posed- to all war since the age of_16. He appealed as a
Conscientious Objector before the Local and Appeal Tri-
bunals, both of which treated him very unfairly, going out
of their way to recommend his dismissal from school. They
recognised his conscientious claim only so far as to award
him non-combatant seix’ice. But as the purpose of such
service is to further the prosecution of the w'ar, and to
release others, for the trenches, it was impossible for him
to accept the decision of the Tribunals.

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75

On March 31st he was arrested as an absentee, brought
before the magistrates, fined £.2, and handed over to the
Military Authorities. By them he was taken imder escort
to Warrington Barracks, where he was compelled to put on
uniform. On April 1st he was taken to Abergele, where he
was placed in the Non-Combatant Corps, which is part of
the Army.

He adopted consistently a policy of passive resistance
to all military orders. The first morning, April 2, when
the men were ordered to fall in for fatigue duty, he re-
fused, saying: “I refuse to obey any order given by any
military authority.” According to the Corporal, who gave
the order, Everett “said it in quite a nice way.”

The Corporal informed the Lieutenant, who repeated
the order, and warned Everett of the seriousness of his
conduct. Everett still answered politely, but explained why
he could not obey. The Lieutenant ordered the Conscien-
tious Objector to the guard-room, where he remained all
night.

The Captain visited the prisoner, who stated that “he
was not going to take orders.” The Captain ordered him
to be brought before the Commanding Officer on a charge
of disobedience.

Everett was next brought before the Colonel, who read
aloud to him Section 9 of the Army Act, and explained
the serious consequences of disobedience. But Everett re-
mained firm, saying “He could not and would not obey
any military order.”

The resxilt was that he was tried by Court Martial on
April 10th. He stated in evidence in his own defence; “I
am prepared to do work of national importance which
does not include military service, so long as I do not
thereby release some other man to do what I am not pre-
pared to do myself.”

The sentence was two years’ hard labour. Everett is
now suffering this savage punishment solely for refusal to
go against his conscience. He is fighting the old fight for
liberty and against religious persecution in the same spirit

76 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

in which martyrs sulS'ered in the past. Will you join the
persecutors? Or will you stand for those who are defend-
ing conscience at the cost of obloquy^ and pain of mind
and body? ■ ■

Fo^ other men are sufiering persecution for conscience
sake in the same way. as Mr. Everett. Can you remain
sUent whilst this goes on?

Issued by the No-Conscription Fellowship, 8, Merton
House, S^sbury Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.

From T/ie Times of May 17, 1916

ADSUM QUI FECI.^*"-

To the Editor of The Times

Sir, A leaflet was lately issued by the No-Conscription
Fellowship dealing with the case of Mr. Everett, a con-
scientious objector, who was sentenced to two years’ hard
labour by Court-martial for disobedience to the military
authorities; Six men have been condemned to varying
terms of imprisonment with hard labour , for distributing
this leaflet. I wish to make it known that I am the author
of this leaflet, and that if anyone is to be prosecuted I am
the person primarily responsible.

Yours faithfully,
Bertrand Russell

June 4th [1916]

Dearest Bertie: . j i.

Good luck to you in every way. Let me know if and how
I can help or shew any office of friendship. You know we
enough that the mere fact that I think your views of state
policy and of private duty in relation to it to be mistaken,

. do not diminish affection.

Yours affeciiomtely,

A. N. Whitehead

I am just going to commence my address for Section A
at Newcastle in September — I will shew it you in ms.

* The heading to this letter was added by The Times.

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77

British Embassy
WashiQgtoa
8 June 1916

My dear Mr. President:"^-

I am sorry to say that Russell has been convicted under
“defence of the realm act” for writing an undesirable pam-
phlet. Under these circumstances it would be impossible
to issue a passport to him to leave the country.

I am sorry, and Sir Edward Grey is sorry, that it is
impossible to meet your wishes but I trust that you will
understand the necessity in which my govermnent is
placed.

Oddly enough I was at the Berlin Embassy when we got
into trouble owing to Russell’s attitude when on a visit to
Berlin as the German govermnent strongly objected to his
language, t

Yours sincerely,

Cecil Spring Rice$

To Professor James H. Woods § 34 Russell Chambers

30 July 1916

Dear Processor Woods:

Your letter and the Ambassador’s were not wholly a
surprise to me. I cabled to you on receiving them, but I
doubt if the cable ever reached you. Your letter was
most kind. The allusion to my doings in Berlin was mis-
leading. I was there in 1895 for the purpose of writing a
book on German Socialism; this led me to associate with
Socialists, and therefore to be excluded from the Embassy.
I did nothing publicly all the time I was there. The Kaiser
was having Socialists imprisoned in large numbers for
their opinions, which gave me a hatred for him that I
retain to this day. But unless in quite private conversations

* The President of Harvard University.

t It was not my language, but my attending Socialist meetings, that
was objected to.

t British Ambassador in Washington.

§ Of the Harvard Department of Philosophy.

78

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

I never expressed my feelings ail the time I was there. I
have never been in Berlin since 1895.

I should be glad to know whether you have seen or
received the verbatim report of my trial. It has been
sent you, but may have been stopped by the Censor, who
is anxious that America should not know the nature of my
crime. You will have heard that I have been turned out of
Trinity for the same offence. The sum-total of my crime
was that I said two years’ hard labour in prison was an
excessive punishment for the offence of having a conscien-
tious objection to participation in war. Since then, the
same offence has been punished by the death-sentence,
commuted to 10 years’ penal servitude. Anyone who
thinks that I can be made to hold my tongue when such
things are being done is grossly mistaken. And the Gov-
ernment only advertizes its own errors by trying ineffec-
tually to punish those of us who won’t be silent. Working
men are sent to prison when they commit the crime that
I committed. And when they come out, no one will em-
ploy them, so that they are reduced, to living on charity.
This is a war for liberty.

This letter wiU no doubt never reach you, but it may be
found interesting by the Censor. If it does reach you,
please let me know by return of post. It is a matter of
some public interest to know what is allov/ed to pass, and
if I don’t hear from you within 6 weeks I shall assume
that this letter has been stopped. _ ■

These are fierce times. But there is a new spirit abroad,
and good will come out of it all in the end. I wish your
country had not embarked upon the career of militarism.

Yours ever gratefully,
B.R.

To Ottoline Morrell ^ „

[June 1916]

My Darling: • u t

A 1000 thanks for your dear dear letter which 1

just got. I am grateful for it.

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79

This prosecution is the very thing I wanted. I have a
very good case morally — as good as possible. I think
myself that the legal case is good tho’ no doubt they will
convict, and I rather hope they will. I have seen the
solicitor (George Baker) and arranged to defend myself
without a barrister in the 1st Court on Monday. Then I
shall appeal,* and employ a barrister the 2nd time. The
2nd time is not till the autumn, so I shall be able to go
round the country in the summer as I had planned. That
is not at aU a wild scheme — apart from any good it may
do, I shalldeam a lot that I want to know.

I saw Miss Marshall and AUen and a number of the
others — they were all delighted and hoping I should get
a savage sentence. It is all great fun, as well as a magnifi-
cent opportunity. The sort of opportunity I have longed
for — and I have come by it legitimately, without going
out of my way. I am going back to Cambridge now, com-
ing up again Friday and staying here till Monday. Think
of me Monday 11:30. L hope I shall be worthy of the
occasion.

Goodbye my Darling Love. Your love and sympathy do
help far more than you know.

Your

B.

Monday evg. [1916]

Today I had lunch and a country walk with the Rev.
Morgan Jones, a prominent pacifist here [in South Wales]
and a real saint. Then I went to a neighbouring town for a
meeting — it was to have been in the school, but that was
refused at the last moment, so we had it in the open air.
A Unitarian Minister spoke who has a son a C.O. It is
wonderful what the C.Os. have done for the cause of
peace — the heroism is no longer all on the side of war.

I Ought to have gone into more hostile districts. Here it
is merely a picnic and I feel I should be better employed

80 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

in town. After the 23rd I shall be back in town — by then
most of our Nat. Committee will be gone.

I am longing to know how Allen’s visit went off. I am
so terribly afraid it will have been a failure.

Speaking is a great nervous strain. I feel very slack all
the rest of the time. But I sleep weU and my mind is at
peace so I don’t get really tired. I never have any funda-
mental worries now-a-days,

I shall be very poor, having lost America and probably
Trinity. I shall have to find some other way of making
money. I think if Trinity turns me out I shall advertise
academic lectures in London on philosophical subjects. It
would be delightful if they succeeded, as they wouldn’t
interfere with political work. I have often dreamt of having
an independent school like Abelard. It mi^t lead to great
things. I feel I am only on the threshold of life — the rest
has been preparation — I mean as far as work is con-
cerned. Quite lately I have somehow found myself — I
have poise and sanity — I no longer have the feeling of
powers unrealized within me, which used to be a perpetual
torture. I don’t care what the authorities do to me, they
can’t stop me long. Before, I have felt either wicked or
passively resigned — now I feel fuUy active and contented
with my activity — I have no inward discords any more
— and nothing ever really troubles me.

I realize that as soon as the worst of the stress is over I
shall want some more intellectual occupation. But I see
room for endless work on political theory. And it will have
the advantage that it will involve seeing all sorts of people
and getting to know all sorts of human facts — it won t
leave half of me unsatisfied as abstract work does. The
only doubt is whether I shan’t some day be suddenly ove^
.whelmed by the passion for the things that are eternal an
perfect, like mathematics. Even the most abstract politjcal
theory is terribly mundane and temporary'. But that mus
be left to the future. _ ,

It is very sad seeing you so seldom. I feel as if we shoul
lose intimacy and get out of the way of speaking of per-
sonal things — it would be a great loss if that happene .

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81

I know extraordinarfly little of your inner life now-a-days,
and I wish I knew more, but I don’t know how to elicit it.
My own existence has become so objective that I hardly
have an inner life any more for the present — but I should
have if I had leisure.

My Dearest, I am full of love to you — visions are
always in my mind of happy days after the war, when we
shall get back to poetry and beauty and summer woods,
and the vision of things outside this earth. But the war
keeps one tied to earth. And sometimes I wonder if we
have both grown so impersonal that it has become difBcult
to give oneself to personal love — it always was difficult
for you. It is a great loss if it is so. I hope it isn’t. Do write
a full letter when you can, and tell me something of your
inward life.

From the Trinity College Council Trinity College

Cambridge
11 July 1916

Dear Russell:

It is my duty to inform you that the following resolution
was unanimously passed by the College Council today:
“That, since Mr. Russell has been convicted under the
Defence of the Realm Act, and the conviction has been
affirmed on appeal, he be removed from his Lectureship
in the College.”

Yours sincerely,

H. McLeod Innes

From Samuel Alexander* 24, Brunswick Road

"Withington

M/C

16.7.16

Dear Russell:

I feel indignant about the action of Trinity, which dis-
graces them (as well as making them ridiculous). I don t
share your views about War (as I think you may know)

The distinguished philosopher.

82 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

and I can’t well judge the effect of your action — though
I have hated the bungling and injustice of the treatment of
Conscientious Objectors. But sensible people, even if they
don’t know and admire you personally, respect honest
convictions; and Trinity’s action is both intolerant, and
impertinent. It matters to all of us at Universities (and
elsewhere) more perhaps than it matters to you.

Yours sincerely,

S. Alexander

I have only the Trinity address, and must send that way.

From my brother Frank Telegraph House

Chichester
16 July. 1916

My detxr Bertie:

I have seen the Trinity announcement in the paper,
and whatever you may say, I very much regret it. No
doubt these stuffy old dons were very uncongenial to you,
and were also unfriendly on account of your views, but
still, I always thought you well suited to an academic life,
and a personality of great value to the young — in stirring
their ideas. I think as time goes on you will miss it more
than you realize and probably regret it

I can’t attempt to shape your career for you — you
must be the only guide and the only judge of your own
actions — but don’t finally cut yourself off too rashly and
above aU beware of popular audiences. The average
[man] is such a fool that any able man. who_can talk can
sway him for a' time. What the world w'ants of first class
intellects like yours is not action — for which the ordinary
politician or demagogue is good enough — but thought, a
■much more rare quality. Think out our problems, embody
the result in writing, and let it slowly percolate through the
teachers of the next generation. And don’t suppose the
people you meet are as earnest, as deep or as sincere as
you are.

Als mere experience and learning about human bemgs
what you are doing now may have its value, but you see

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83

what I am tr 3 dng to say is that you are wasting yourself.
You are not making the best use for the world of your
talents. As soon as you come to see that you will change
your activities.

Well — I don’t preach to you often, because as a rule
you don’t need it, but at the moment I think you are a
little (or rather, a great deal) carried away.

It’s a long time to Feb. 1 — why not go to America
sooner? — they ought to be glad to get rid of you!

Come and see us when you are in London and try and
spend a few placid days here with us in August.

Yours affectionately,

F

Burrows Hill

Gomshall

Surrey

23 July 1916

Dear Russell:

I have only today received an account of the College
Council’s action and a report of your trial before the
Mayor.

I must tell you that I think your case was as unan-
swerable as it was unanswered, and the decision, so far as
I can see, was utterly unwarranted by the evidence.

I was glad you said you could respect your friends who
are not pacifists in quite the same sense that you are.
What you think of me I don’t know: but I have admired
the fight you have put up.

As for the College Council, you know too much to con-
fuse it with the College. The older dons, last time I saw
them, seemed to me to be in various stages of insanity.
Something will have to be done when the younger ories
come back. I am sure there would have been a majority
of the whole body against the Council, if it had come
before a full College meeting.

I feel very bitterly that the Council has disgraced us.

84

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

When you and Moore came back,^ I was delighted that
we had recovered you both, and now we have lost one
of you, it is a real grief and humiliation.

Yours sincerely,

F. M. CORNFOKD^

To G. Lowes Dickinson 34 Russell Chambers

Bury Street, W.C.
Sunday [1916]

Dear Goldie:

Thank you very much for your letter in the Nation,^
which I read with gratitude. One has a little the sense of
reading one’s own obituaries,^ a thing I have always wished
to be able to do! The Whiteheads are very decent about
this. I think McT.” and Lawrence were the prime moves.
I- have been sold up, but owing to kind friends I have lost
nothing. I don’t know who they are — whoever they are,
I am most grateful and touched.

Clifford Allen is to be taken tomorrow. Casement^ is
to be shot. I am ashamed to be at large.

Yours ever,
B.R.

Finches
Aston Tirrold
22 Aug. 1916

Dear Bertie:

You win have realised how I feel about all this persecu-
tion. Did you ever meet Constable — a young economist

* Moore had been invited back from Edinburgh ■where he had had a
post .

tComford W'as a FeUow of Trinity, and a distinguished
ancient piulosophy. His ■wife was Frances Comford the poet His -
was killed in the Spanish Chil War. I was very fond of both him -na
his ■wife.

i Of July 29th, 1916. . of

5 1 was able to in 1921. The allusion is to my being turned our oi
Trinity.

DMcTaggart, ._

A Sir Roger Casement, ■w’ho first became kno^wn for hK p* ‘
against atrocities in the Congo, was an Irish rebel who sidea wi
Germans. He was captured, tried and executed.

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85

who was going to the bar — at our house? He’s a Major
now and in writing to me from the front says “I was very
glad to see that there have been protests against the action
of Trinity with regard to Bertrand Russell. I must say that
men I have met out here nearly all agree with me that the
College has merely stultified itself.” . . .

Masefield writing up the Dardanelles — has been al-
lowed to see some official documents and so on. It is most
disheartening that literary men of standing should try to
make a mere calamity “epic” for American consumption.

Yours jraternally,

Charles Percy Sanger

6, Selwyn Gardens

Cambridge

3.ix.l6

Dear Russell:

I am amazed and grieved to see how you are being
badgered and hounded about. It is most outrageous, and
what the motive for it aU may be I am quite at a loss to
surmise. Are they afraid that you will sneak off to America
or is there some rabid fanatic trying to persuade them
that you are what the McTaggarts call us — pro-Ger-
mans? I see you are annoimced to lecture in Manchester:
is there no danger of your lectures being prohibited? WeU
you have just got to compose yourself with dignity and
patience and there will be voices in yoiu: favour to speak
out before long.

Since I saw you I have been trying to draw up a state-
ment to justify your action and to serve as a separate
preamble to accompany an invitation to protest against the
action of the College Council to be sent to aU the fellows
of the College (exclusive of the Council).* . . .

Yours ever,
James Ward

The writer of the following letter killed not long

Nothing came of this.

■Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

^tenmrds. I n^er met him, but I came to know his
fiancee, Dorothy Mackenzie, who, on the news of his
death, became blind for three weeks.

9tli Batt. Oxfordshire &
BucidnghamsMre Light
Infantry

Bovington Camp

Wareham

Dorset

Sunday, Sept. 3, 1916

Dear Mr. Russell:

Seeing the new scene that has been added to this amaz-
ing farce of which you are the unfortunate protagonist, I
could not help writing to you. Of course you know that
such sane men as still live, or have kept their sanify, have
nothing but admiration for you, and therefore you may
-cry that this note is impertinent. Literally, I suppose it is;
but not to me.

- 1 caimot resist the joy of communicating directly with
one whom I admired so much before the war, as the writer
of the clearest and finest philosophical English prose, and
whom I admire so much more now when aU the intellec-
tuals, except, thank god, Shaw, have lost the use of their
reason.

I think there may be some shade of excuse for this lib-
erty at a time when reason and thought are in danger and
when you, their ablest champion, are the victim of incom-
petence and derision: at such a time those who love Jus-
tice should speak.

I knov/ you must have many friends in the army, and
are aware that it, too, contains men of good-wiU, though >
it is through it and its domination that England finds her-
self as she is; yet one more assurance of complete under-
standing and S 5 unpathy may not annoy you.

Were I back in the Ranks again — and I vwsh I were

The First War

87

— I could have picked half-a-dozen men of our platoon
to have signed with me; here, it is not so.

Thank you, then, for aU you are and all you have writ-
ten, for “A Free Man’s Worship” and Justice in War
Time and The Policy of the Entente and many others; and
I hope that I (and you, of course, for we don’t know what
they mayn’t do to you) may live to see you.

Yours sincerely,

A. Graeme West
2nd Lieut.

To Miles Malleson 52, St. James’s Court

Buckingham Gate, S.W.
[1916]

My dear Sir;

I think that a small minority of the C.O.’s are sincerely
honest men but I believe that unless the path of the C.O.
is made difficult it will supply a stampede track for every
variety of shirker. Naturally a lot of the work of control
falls on the hands of clumsy and rou^ minded men. I
reaUy don’t feel very much sympathy with these “martjus.”
I . don’T-feel- so sure as you do that.. C.O.’s base the
objection on love rather than hate. I have''hevef’hear'd
either Cahh^ or Norman speak lovingly of any human
being. Their normal attitude has always been one of oppo-
sition — to anything. Enthusiasm makes them liverish.
And the Labour Leader group I believe to be thoroughly
dishonest, Ramsay MacDonald, I mean. Morel and the
editor. I may be wrong but that is my slow and simple
conviction.

Very sincerely yours,

H. G. Wells

My statement concerning my meeting with General Cock-
erill on September 5th, 1916:

I called at the War Office with Sir Francis Younghus-
,band by appointment at 3 ; 15 to see General Cockeriil. He

88

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

had beside him a report of my speeches in S. Wales and
■drew special attention to a sentence in a speech I made at
Cardiff saying there was no good reason why this war
should continue another day. He said that such a state-
ment made to miners or munition workers was calculated
'to diminish their ardour. He said, also that I was encourag-
ing men to refuse to fight for their country. He said he
would withdraw the order forbidding me to enter pro-
hibited areas if I would abandon political propaganda and
return to mathematics. I said I could not conscientiously
give such an undertaking.

He said;

“You and I probably'- regard conscience differently. I
regard it as a still small voice, but when it becomes
blatmit. and.strident I suspect it of no longer being a con-
science.”

I replied:

“You do not apply this principle to those w'bo -write and
speak in favour of the war; you do not consider that if
they hold their opinions in secret they are conscientious
men, but if they give utterance to them in the Press or on
the platform they are mere propagandists. There seems
.some lack of justice in this differentiation.”

He remained silent a long while and then replied:

■ “Yes, that is true. But,” he said, “you have said your
say, can you not rest content with having said it an
return to those other pursuits in which” — so he was
pleased to add — “you have achieved so much distinc-
tion? Do you not think there is some lack of a sense o
humour in going on reiterating the same thing?”

I failed to reply that I had observed this lack - ff
were one — in The Times, the Morning Post and other

The First War

89

patriotic organs, which appeared to me to be somewhat
addicted to reiteration, and that if it would not ser\'e any
purpose to repeat myself I failed to see why he was so
anxious to prevent me from doing so. But what I did say
was that new issues are constantly arising and I could not
barter away my right to speak on such issues. I said;

“I appeal to you as a man, would you not feel less
respect for me if I agreed to this bargain which you pro-
pose?”

After a long hesitation he replied;

“No, I should respect you more; I should think better
of your sense of humour if you realized the uselessness of
saying the same thing over and over again.”

I told him that I was thinking of delivering lectures on
the general principles of politics in Glasgow, Edinburgh
and Newcastle. He asked whether these would involve the
propaganda he objected to. I said no, not directly, but
they would state the general principles out of which the
propaganda has grown, and no doubt men with sufficient
logical acumen would be able to draw inferences.'He then
gave it to be understood that such lectures could not be
permitted. He wound up with an earnest appeal to me not
to make the task of the soldiers more difficult when they
were engaged in a life and death struggle.

I told him that he flattered me in supposing my influ-
ence sufficient to have any such restilt, but that I could not
possibly cease my propaganda as the result of a threat and
that if he had wished his appeal to have weight he ought
not to have accompanied it by a threat. I said I was most
sincerely sorry to be compelled to do anything which the
authorities considered embarrassing, but that I had no
choice in the matter.

We parted with mutual respect, and on my side at least,
without the faintest feeling of hostility. Nevertheless it was

50 ^'ilobiography of Berirand Russell '

perfectly clear that he meant to proceed to extremities if
I did not abandon political propaganda.

To Ottoline Morrell Monday night

[September 1916]

My Darling:

There seems a good chance that the authorities will
relent towards me — I am half sorry! I shall soon have
come to the end of the readjustment with Mrs. E. [Mrs.
T. S. Ehot] I think it will all be all right, on a better basis.
As soon as it is settled, I will come to Garsington. I long
to come.

I have been realizing various things during this time.
It is odd how one finds out what one really wants, and
how very selfish it always is. What I want permanently —
not consciously, but deep down — -is stimulus, the sort of
thing that keeps my brain active and exuberant. I suppose
that is what makes me a , vampire. I get a stimulus most
from the instinctive feeling of success. Failure makes me
collapse. Odd things give me a sense of failure — for in-
stance, the v/ay the C.Os. all take alternative service, ex-
cept a handful. Wittgenstein’s criticism gave me a sense of
failure. The real trouble between you and me has always
been that you gave me a sense of failure — at first, be-
cause you were not happy; then, in other ways. To be
really happy with you, not only momentarily, I should
have to lose that sense of failure. I had a sense of success
with Mrs. E. because I achieved what I meant to achieve
(which was not so very difiicult), but now I have lost that,
not by your fault -in the least; The sense of success helps
my work: when I lose it, my writing grows dull and life-
less. I often feeTauccess quite apart from bappinep: it
depends upon what one puts one’s will into. Instinctively,
I turn to .things in which success is possible, just for the
stimulus.

I have always cared for you in yourself, and not as a
stimulus or for any self-centred reason; but when I have

The First War

91

felt that through caring for you and feeling unsuccessful
I have lost energy, it has produced a sort of instinctive
resentment. That has been at the bottom of everything —
and now that I have at last got to the bottom of it, it won’t
be a trouble any longer. But unless I can cease to have a
sense of failure with you, I am bound to go on looking for
stimulus elsewhere from time to time. That would only
cease if I ceased to care about work — I am sure all this
is the exact truth.

I would set my will in a different direction as regards
you, if I knew of any direction in which I could succeed.
But I don’t think it can be done in that way.

The rare moments of mystic insight that I have had
have been when I was free from the will to succeed. But
they have brought a new kind of success, which I have at
once noticed and wanted, and so my will has drifted back
into the old ways. And I don’t believe I should do any-
thing worth doing without that sort of will. It is very
tangled.

To Constance Malleson (Colette) Gordon Square

September 29, 1916

You are already where I have struggled to be, and
without the weariness of long effort. I have hated many
people in the past. The language of hate still comes to me
easily, but I don’t really hate anyone now. It is defeat that
makes one hate people — and now I have no sense of
defeat anywhere. No one need ever be defeated ^ — it rests
with oneself to make oneself invih'cible. Quite lately I have
had'a'sense of freedom I never had before ... I don’t like
the spirit of socialism — I think freedom is the basis of
everything.

“The keys to an endless peace” —

I am not so great as that, really not — I know where
peace is — I have seen it, and felt it at times — but I can
still imagine misfortunes that would rob me of peace. But
there is a world of peace, and one can live in it, and yet be

92

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

active still over all that is bad in the world. Do you know
how sometimes all the barriers of personality fall away,

and one is free for aU the world to come in the stars

and the night and the wind, arid all the passions and hopes
of men, and aE the slow centuries of growth — and even
the cold abysses of space grow friendly — "E il naujfagar
m’e dolce in questo mare/' And from that moment some
quality of ultimate peace enters into aE one feels — even
when one feels most passionately. I felt it the , other night
by the river — I thought you were going to withdraw
yourseE — I felt that if you did I should lose the most
wonderful thing that had ever come to me — and yet an
ultimate fundamental peace remained — E it hadn’t, I
believe I should have lost you then. I cannot bear the
Ettleness and enclosing walls of purely personal things
— 1 want to Eve always open to the world, I want per-
sonal love to be lEce a beacon fire lighting up the darkness,
not a timid refuge from the cold ^ it is very often.'" ’ ' "
London under the stars is strangely moving. The mo-
mentariness of the separate lives seems so strange —

In some way I can’t put into words, I feel that some of
our thoughts and feelings are just of the nToment, but
others are part of the eternal world,' like the stars — even
E their actual existence is passing, something — some
spirit or essence — seems to last on, to be part of the real
history of the universe, not oiEy of the separate person.
Somehow, that is how I want to Eve, so that as much of
Efe as possible may have that quaEty of eternity. .1 can t
explain what I mean — you will have to know of
course I don’t succeed in Eving that way — but that is
“the shining key to peace.”

Oh, I am happy, happy, happy —

B.

Gordon Square
October 23, 1916

I have meant to teE you many things about vay lEe,
and every time the moment has conquered me. I 3^®

The First War

93

Strangely unhappy because the pattern of my life is com-
plicated, because my nature is hopelessly complicated; a
mass of contradictory impulses; and out of all this, to my
intense sorrow, pain to you must grow. The centre of me
is always and eternally a terrible pain — a curious wUd
pain — a searching for something beyond what the world
contains, something transfigured and infinite — the bea-
tific vision — God — I do not find it, I do not thinlc it is
to be foimd — but the love of it is my life — it’s like
passionate love for a ghost. At times it fills me with rage,
at times with wUd despair, it is the source of gentleness
and cruelty and work, it fills every passion that I have —
it is the actual spring of life within me.

I can’t explain it or make it seem anything but foolish-
ness — but whether foolish or not, it is the source of
whatever is any good in me. I have known others who had
it — Conrad especially — but it is rare — it sets one
oddly apart and gives a sense of great isolation — it makes
people’s gospels often seem thin. At most times, now,' I
am not conscious of it, only when I am strongly stirred,
either happily or unhappily. I seek escape from it, though
I don’t believe I ought to. In that moment with you by
the river I felt it most intensely.

“Wjndows -always open to the world” I told you once,
but through one’s windows one sees not only the joy and
beauty of the world, but also its pain and cruelty and
ugliness, and the one is as well worth seeing as the other,
and one. must. look, into hell before one has any right to
speak of heaven.

B.

Wednesday nicht
Dec. 27, 1916

Dear Mr. Russell:

To-night here on the Somme I have just finished your
Principles of Social Reconstruction which I found wait-
ing for me when I came out of the line. I had seen a
couple of Reviews of it, one in the Nation, one in Land

94

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

and Water and from the praise of the former and the
thinly veiled contempt of the latter I augured a good book.
It encouraged me all the more as the state of "opmion in
England seems to fall to lower and lower depths of undig-
nified hatred. It is only on account of such thoughts as
•yours, on account of the existence of men and women like
yourself that it seems worth while survi'ving the war — if
one should haply sur%nve. Outside the small circle of that
cool light I can discern nothing but a scorching desert.

Do not fear though that the life of the spirit is djing in
tis, nor that hope or energy wiU be spent; to some few of
us at any rate the hope of helping to found some “city of
God” carries us away from these present horrors and
be3'ond the graver intolerance of thought as we see it in
our papers., We shall not faint and the energy and endur-
ance we have used here on an odious task we sh^l be able
to redouble in the creative w’ork that peace will bring to
*do. We are too young to be permanently damaged in body
or spirit, even by these sufferings.

Rather what w'e feared until your book came was that
we would find no one left in England who worild build
wdth us. Remember, then, that v/e are to be relied on to
do twice as much afterwards as we have done during the
war, and after reading your book that determination grew
intenser than ever; it is for you that we would wish to
live on.

I have written to you before and should perhaps apolo-
^e for writing again, but that seems to me rather absurd;
you cannot mind knowing that y'ou are understood and
admired and that those exist who would be ^ad to work
with you.

Yours sincerely,

A. Graeme West, 2nd Lt.

6th Oxford & Bucks. L.I.

B. E.F.

From the Press: ,

SECONTJ LIEUTENANT ARTHUR GRAEME WEST, Oxford anu
Bucks Light Infantry, whose death is officiaUy announced

The First War

95

today, was th'e eldest son of Arthur Birt West, 4 HoUy
Terrace, Highgate. He fell on April 3 [1917], aged 25.

To Colette Guilford

December 28, 1916

How- can love blossom among explosions and falling
Zeppelins and all the surroundings of our love? It has to
grow jagged and painful before it can live in such a world.
I long for it to be otherwise — but soft things die in this
horror, and our love has to have pain for its life blood.

I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate
the Labour Congress and the journalists who send men to
be slaughtered, and the fathers who feel a smug pride
when their sons are kilted, and even the pacifists who keep
saying human nature is essentially good, in spite of alt the
dsjly proofs to the contrary. I hate the planet and the
human race — I am ashamed to belong to such a species
— And what is the good of me in that mood?

B.

77, Lady Margaret Road
Highgate. N.W.5
June 5th. [1917]

Dear Mr. Russel:

I am glad you sent Graeme West’s letters to the Cam-
bridge Magazine, for I am very sure he speaks for a great ■
many, some of whom will survive.

When I had read your Principles of Social Reconstruc-
tion, being a young woman instead of a young man, I had
the joy of being able to come and hear you speak at the
Nursery of the Fabian Society. And I dared to say j'ou
were too gloomy, and that the world was not so spoilt as
you thought. It was because West was in my thoughts that
I was able to do that, and kindly you smiled at the op-
. timism of youth, but the sadness of your smiling set me
fearing.

96

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Now I fenow that you were ri^t and I was wrong. But
I assure you Jdr. Russel, that we women want to buSd,
and we unhappily do survive. And I can end my letter as
he ended his and say very truly “it is for you that we would
wish to live on.”

It is' very difficult to know what to do, I am an elemen-
tary teacher, and every class in the school but mine is
disciplined by a military method. I have to work as it
were by stedth, disguising my ideas as -much as possible,
CMdreh, as you are aware, do not develop themselves, in
our elementary schools. Your chapter on education en-
couraged me more than anything I have read or heard
since I started teaching. I thank you for that encourage-
ment. It is most sad to teach in these days; underpaid,
overworked, the man I loved most killed lor a cause in
which he no longer believed, out of sympathy with most o!
my Mends and relations, I find strength and comfort in
you throu^ your book. I feel indeed that you understand,

Dorothy Mackenzie

Twelve

F-lm Park Gardens
Chelsea. S.W.

Jan. 8th, 17

Dear Bertie:

I am awfully sorry, but you do not seem to appreciate
my point.

I don’t want my ideas propagated at present either
under my name or anybody else’s — that is to say, as far
as they are at present on paper. The result wffi be an in-
complete misleading exposition which will inevitably queer
the pitch for the final exposition when I want to put it

out. _

My ideas and methods- grow in a different way to yo^
and the period of incubation is long and the result attains
its intelligible form in the final stage, — I do not want you
to have my notes which in chapters are lucid, to precipi-

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97

tate them into what I should consider as a series of half-
truths. I have worked at these ideas off and on for all my
life, and should be left quite bare on one side of my
speculative existence if I handed them over to some one
else to elaborate. Now that I begin to see daylight, I do
not feel justified or necessitated by any view of scientific
advantage in so doing.

I am sorry that you do not feel able to get to work
except by the help of these notes — but I am sure that
you must be mistaken in this, and that there must be the
whole of the remaining field of thought for you to get to
work on — though naturally it would be easier for you to
get into harness with some formed notes to go on. But my
reasons are conclusive. I will send the work round to you
naturally, when I have got it into the form which ex-
presses my ideas.

Yours affectly,

Alfred N. Whitehead

Before the war started, Whitehead had made some
notes on our knowledge of the external world and 1. had
written a book on this subject in which I made use with
due acknowledgement of ideas that Whitehead had passed
on to me. The above letter shows that this had vexed him.
In fact, it put an end to our collaboration.

To Lady Emily Lutyens 57, Gordon Square

W.C. (1)

21.nL17

Dear Lady Emily:

I have shortened my article by seven lines, which was
what seemed needed — six lines close to the end and one
in the middle of the last column.

Is it really necessary to say that I am “heir-presumptive
to the present Earl Russell”? I cannot see that my
brother’s having no children makes my opinions more
worthy of respect.

98 ; • Ihe Autobiography oj Bertrand Russell'

• I have corrected a fewinaccufacies in the biography.

Critical detachment is hardly my attitude to the war.
My attitude is one of intense and passionate protest — I
consider it a horror, an infamy, an overwhelming and
u nmi tigated disaster, making the whole of life ghastly.

Yours very sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

To and from Colette Gordon Square

March 27, 1917

I cannot express a thousandth part of what is in my
heart — our day in the country was so marvellous. All
through Sunday it grew and grew, and at ni^t it seemed
to pass beyond the bounds of hxnnan things. I feel no
longer all alone in the w'orld. Your love brings warmth
into all the recesses of my being. You used to speak of a
wall of separation between us. That no longer exists. The
winter is ending, we shall have sunshine and the song of
birds, and wild flowers, primroses, bluebells, and then the
scent of the may. We will keep joy alive in us. You are
strong and brave and free, and filled with passion and
love — the very substance of aU my dreams come to life,

Gordon Square
September 23, 1917

The whole region in my mind where you lived, seems
burnt out. .

There is nothing for us both but to try and forget each
other.

Goodbye — ^

Mecklenburgh Square
September 26, 1917

I thought, until last night, that our love would grow and
grow until it w'as strong as loneliness itself.

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99

I have gazed down Eternity with you. I have held reins
of glory in my two hands — Now, though I will still
believe in the beauty of eternal things, they will not be for
me. You wiU put the crown on your work. You will stand
on the heights of impersonal greatness. I worship you, but
our souls are strangers — I pray that I may soon be worn
out and this torture ended.

C.

Gordon Square
October 25, 1917

I have known real happiness with you — If I could live
by my creed, I should know it stiU. I feel imprisoned in
egotism — weary of effort, too tired to break though into
love.

How can I bridge the guff?

B.

From The Tribunal, Thursday, January 3rd, 1918

. THE GERMAN PEACE OFFER
by Bertrand Russell

The more we hear about the Bolsheviks, the more the
legend of our patriotic press becomes exploded. We were
told that they were incompetent, visionary and corrupt,
that they must fall shortly, that the mass of Russians were
against them, and that they dared not permit the Con-
stituent Assembly to meet. All these statements have
turned out completely false, as anyone may see by reading
the very interesting despatch from Arthur Ransome in the
Daily News of December 31st.

Lenin, whom we have been invited to regard as a Ger-
man Jew, is really a Russian aristocrat who has suffered
many years of persecution for his opinions. The social
revolutionaries who were represented as enemies of the
Bolsheviks have formed a connection with them. The Con-
stituent Assembly is to meet as soon as half its members

100

The Autobiography oj Bertrand Russell

have reached Petrograd, and very nearly half have already
arrived. All charges of German money remain entirely
unsupported by one thread of evidence.

The most noteworthy arid astonishing triumph of the
Bolsheviks is in their negotiations with the Germans. In
a military sense Russia is defenceless, and we all supposed
it a proof that they were mere visionaries when they
started negotiations by insisting upon not surrendering any
Russian territory to the Germans. We were told that the
Germans would infallibly insist upon annexing the Baltic
Provinces and establishing a suzerainty over Poland. So
far from this being the case, the German and Austrian
Governments have officially announced that they are pre-
pared to conclude a Peace on the Russian basis of no
annexations and no indemnities, provided that it is a gen-
eral Peace, and they have invited the Western Powers to
agree to these terms.

' This action has placed the Governments of the West-
ern Powers in a most cruel dilemma. If they refuse the
German offer, they are immasked before the world and
before their own Labour and Socialist Parties: they make
it clear to all that they are continuing the war for purposes
of territorial aggrandisement. If they accept the offer, they
afford a triumph to the hated Bolsheviks and an object
lesson to democratic revolutionaries everywhere as to the
way to treat with capitalists. Imperialists and war-
mongers. They know that from the patriotic point of view
they cannot hope for a better peace by continuing the war,
but from the point of view of preventing liberty and uni-
versal peace, there is something to be hoped from con-
tinuation, It is known that unless peace comes soon there
will be starvation throughout Europe. Mothers wffl be
maddened by the spectacle of their children dying. Men
will fight each other for possession of the bare necessaries
of life. Under such conditions the same constructive effort
required for a successful revolution wdll be impossible,
American Garrison which will by that time be occupying
England and France, whether or not they will prove effi-
cient against the Germans, will no doubt be capable of in-

The First War

101

timidating strikers, an occupation to which the American
Army is accustomed when at home. I do not say that these
thoughts are in the mind of the Government. Ail the
evidence tends to show that there are no thoughts what-
ever in their mind, and that they live from hand to mouth
consoling themselves with ignorance and sentimental
twaddle. I say only that if they were capable of thought,
it would be along such lines as I have suggested that they
would have to attempt to justify a refusal to make Peace
on the basis of the German offer, if indeed they do decide
to refuse.

Sonie democrats and Socialists are perhaps not unwill-
ing that the war should continue, since it is clear that if it
does it must lead to universal revolution. I think it is true
that this consequence must follow, but I do not think that
we ought on that account to acquiesce in the refusal to
negotiate should that be the decision at which our Govern-
ments arrive. The kind of revolution with which we shall
in that case be threatened will be far too serious and
terrible to be a source of good. It would be a revolution
full of violence, hatred and bloodshed, driven by hun-
ger, terror and suspicion, — a revolution in which ail that
is best in Western civilisation is bound to perish. It is this
prospect that our rulers ought to be facing. It is this risk
that they run for such paltry objects as the annexation of
African Colonies and Mesopotamia. Labour’s war aims
accepted almost unanimously on December 28th are on
the whole very sane, and might easily form the basis for
the immediate initiation of negotiations. Labour at the
moment has enormous power. Is it too much to hope that
it will use this power to compel some glimmer of sanity on
the part of the blinded and maddened rulers of the V/est-
em Powers? Labour holds the key. It can if it chooses
secure a just and lasting peace within a month, but if this
opportunity is allowed to pass by, aU that wc hold dear
wiQ be swallowed up in universal ruin.

The above article was that for which I was sentenced
to prison.

102 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

To Professor Gilbert Murray 57, Gordoa Square

London, W.C.l
15tli February 1918

My dear Gilbert:

I am very much toucbed by tbe kindness of your letter.
It really is good of you to act when our \'iews are so difier-
ent. Of course if I bad knov,-!! the blaze of publicity that
was going to be directed upon that one sentence of the
Tribunal, I should have phrased it very much more care-
fully, in such a way as to prevent misunderstanding by a
public not used to the tone of exasperated and pugnacious
pacifists. Unless the Government had prosecuted, no-one
but pacifists would ever have seen the sentence. Certainly
it is a thousand to one that no American would ever have
seen it I wrote for the Tribunal once a week for a j'ear,
generally in great haste in the middle of other work. In the
course of this time it was almost unavoidable that I should
emit at least one careless sentence — careless that is as to
form, for as regards the matter I adhere to it.

So far as I can discover, the immediate cause of the
prosecution was the fact that I had ceased to write these
articles, or indeed to take any part in padfist work beyond
attending an occasional Committee. I made up my mind
to this course last autumn, but it was impossible to cany^
it out instantly \dthout inconvenience to colleagues, I
therefore informed the N.C.F. that I would cease to be
their Acting Chairman at the New Year. Accordingly, the
last article I WTOte for. the Tribunal appeared on January
10, a week after the article for which I am prosecuted. It
seems that the authorities realised that if they wished to
punish me they must .pet at once, as I should not be com-
mitting any further crimes. All my plans were made for
going back entirely to writing and philosophical lecturing,
but whether I shall now be able to resume these plans
when I come out of prison is of course doubtful. I do not
much dislike the prospect of prison, prodded I am al-
lowed plenty of books to read. I thinl: the freedom from
responsibility will be rather restful. I cannot imagine any-

The First War

103

thing that there could be to do for me, unless the Ameri-
can Embassy were to take the view that the matter is too
trumpery to be worth a prosecution, but I cannot say that
I have any great desire to see the prosecution quashed. I
think those of us who live in luxury on money which is
secured to us by the Criminal Law ought to have some
idea of the mechanism by which our happiness is secured,
and for this reason I shall be glad to know the inside of a
prison.

With my very wannest thanks.

Yours ever affectionately,
Bertrand Russell

57 Gordon Square W.C.l
27.3.18

Dear Gilbert:

You have been so very kind that I feel I ought to write
to you in regard to what is being done in my case. Assum- ’
ing that the sentence is confirmed, it seems it wiU be the i
thing to ask for 1st Division. This will need preparing soon,
as things move slowly. Hirst is willing to approach Morlcy,
Lorebum, Buckmaster, & Lansdowne, asking them to
write to Cave. It seems to me that Asquith & Grey might
be willing to; also a certain number of un-political learned
men. If you were willing, you could do this better than
any one else. If private representations fail (as they prob-
ably will) letters to the Press will be necessary. All this
will have to be done quickly if it is to be effective.

I saw E. D. Morel yesterday for the first time since he
came out, & was impressed by the .seriousness of a six
months’ sentence. His hair is completely white (there was
hardly a tinge of white before) — w'hen he first came out,
he collapsed completely, physically & mentally, largely as
the result of insufficient food. He says one only gets three
quarters of an hour for reading in the whole day the
rest of the time is spent on prison work etc.^ It seems
highly probable that if the sentence is not mitigated my

.104

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

mind will not remain as competent as it has been. I should
regret this, as I still have a lot of philosophy that I wish
to do. ,

Yrs ever,

Bertrand Russell

Alexandria •
12-2-18

Dear Russell,

In the middle of a six course dinner at the Qub last
night I was told that you were in prison. This is to send
■you my love. I suppose they will let you have it when you
- come out.

Here all is comfort and calm. One will become very
. queer indeed if it, and the Wcir, last much longer.

Yours fraternally,

E. M. Forster

London April 10th. 18

Dear Mr: Russell:

I am only writing a little note to tell you how splendid
I think. your stand has been. Being an ex convict, I under-
stand, a little at what cost you have been true. It is inspir-
ing to us who are younger men and who see so many of
our own friends succumbing to cynical indifference or
academic preoccupation to know that there is at least one
of the Intellectuals of Europe who have not allowed.the
life of the mind to kiU the life of the spirit. . . . Hus is
rather ineffective, but well.

Good luck.

Yours very sincerely,
Lancelot Hogben

From G. Lowes Dickinson 11 Edwardes Square

W. 8. Ap. 19, [1918]

Dear Bertie:

I wish I could have seen you, but ! haven’t been aWe o
fit it in, and I go away today for the rest of April. I hope

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105

to be there on May 1st. It is difficult to have any hope. I
suppose the best thing that could happen now would be
for you to get first-class imprisonment. If they fine you,
you will I suppose be called up at once, and have to go
through the mill as a C.O. The ‘only chance is that the
brute [Lord] Derby has gone from the War Office and I
understand that Milner is more sympathetic to the C.Os.
We are governed by men as base as they are incompetent,
and the country, maddened by fear and hate, continues to
will it so. I blush aU over to be English, sometimes. Yet
one knows that the individual Englishman is a decent,-
kindly well-meaning chap. Its the pack, and its leaders,
that are so vile. But what use in words? One can alter
nothing; and human speech seems to have lost aU mean-
ing. To change the subject, I am reading Aristotle on the
Soul. Its refreshing to be back at a time when the ques-
tions were being examined freshly by first-class minds.
Aristotle’s method of approach might be yours. One sees
however, I think, that the conception of “substance” has
already fixed thought in a certain -unconscious rut. In my
old age, owing I suppose to you and others, I find my
mind more disencmnbered and active than it was in youth.
But the packs of wolves will not be satisfied until they
have lolled off every free mind and brave soul. That’s the
secret object of the war. So long.

G.L.D.

58 Oakley Street

Chelsea, S.W.3

28th April 1918

Dear Bertie:

Although we haven’t met much lately, you are con-
stantly in my thoughts. Its difficult to say what one feels
— you have always been so very much to me and I can’t
bear the thought that you may go to prison, thou^ I
know that your fortitude and self control will bring you
safely through the ordeal. Its a mad world — a nightmare.
I sometunes think I shall wake up and find that it was a

106 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

dream after aU. I hope that reality will prove to be better
than appearance ^ if there is anything besides this ab-
surd world of blood and explosives.

But if tlmgs can be improved, it is you and those like
you who yrill do it and the younger men — if any of them
survive — will look to you.

Yours fraternally,

C. P, Sanger

P.S. Daphne* directs me to send her love.

From G. B. Shaw Ayot, St Lawrence

Welwyn, Herts.

18th March 1918

Dear Miss Mackenzie:

I, am naturally a, good deal concerned about Russell;
but I can do nothing; he must help himself, and that vig-
orously, if he is to win his appeal. At his trial there seeins,
to have been no adequate defence: he, or his counsel,
should have talked for a week and clamored to the heav-
ens against tyranny and injustice' and destruction of popu-
lar rights and deuce knows what else in order to make the
authorities as sorry as possible that they bad stirred up
these questioris, even if they had obtained the sentence ail
the same. Russell is not an imbecile who cannot defend
himself. He is not a poor man who cannot afford a strong
bar. He is practically a nobleman with a tremendous fam-
ily record on the Whig side as a hereditary defender of
popular liberties. Yet the impression left on the public is
that he has been disposed of in ten minutes like an ordi-
nary pickpocket. That must be to some extent the fault of
himself and his friends. It seems like a repetition of the
monstrous mistake of Morel’s plea of guilty, which must
have been made under silly advice under the impression
that guilt is a question of fact, and not of the ethical
character of the action in question.

* His daughter.

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107

The only matter that is reaUy in doubt is whether Rus-
sell should conduct his own case or employ coimsel. In his
place I should unhesitatingly do the job myself. A barris-
ter win put up some superficially ingenious plea which
will give him a good professional chance of shewing off
before the Court of Appeal, one which will not compro-
mise him by any suspicion of sympathy with Russell’s
views, and the failure of which will be a foregone conclu-
sion. Russell will have no preoccupations of that sort; and
he can, as an amateur, take liberties with court procedure
which a barrister cannot. He is accustomed to public
speaking, and therefore not under the necessity of getting
another man to speak for him simply through nervousness
and inexperience.

His case is not by any means a weak one. To begin
with, he can point out 'that he is being prosecuted for a
hypothetical prophecy occupying half a dozen lines in an
article containing several positive statements winch have
since turned out to be entirely wrong and might even have
been dangerously misleading. He was wrong about the
Bolsheviks, about the Constituent Assembly, about the
German and Austrian Governments. Yet no exception is
taken to these errors.

But when he got on to the solider ground taken by
Lord Lansdowne, and argued that a continuation of the
war must lead inevitably to starvation throughout Europe,
a ridiculous pretext is found for attacking him. The war is
full of ironies; the belligerents claiming to be the defend-
ers of liberties which they have ail been engaged at one
time or another in vigorously suppressing. The Germans
forget their oppression of Prussian Poland; and denounce
England as the oppressor of Ireland, Egypt and India. The
French forget Tonquin, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia,
and the Bonapartist regime, and revile the Germans as
conquerors and annexationists. Italy forgets Abyssinia and
the Tripolitaine, and claims Dalmatia and part of the
Austrian Tyrol, whilst driving Austria from the Trentino
on nationalist grounds. Finally, America, which has been

108

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

engaged in conflicts with her own workers which in Colo-
rado and some other States have almost approached the
proportions of a civil war, assumes the mission of redeem-
ing the German proletariat from slavery. All these ironies
have been pointed out again and again in the bitterest
terms by philosophic journalists, except the last which
Russell was the first to hint at very mildly in The Tribunal
Immediately some foolish censor, knowing nothing about
irony or history or anything else except the rule of thumb
of his department, pounces on the allusion as something
that has not been passed before, and therefore must be
challenged.

But the main point is that if Russell, in spite of his
social and academic position, is to be savagely pum'shed
for writing about the war as a Pacifist and a philosopher,
the intimidation of the Press will be carried thereby to a
point in England which it has not yet attained in Germany
or Austria; and if it be really an advantage to be a free
country, that advantage will go to Germany. We are claim-
ing the support of the world in this war solely on the
ground that v/& represent Liberal institutions, and that our
enemies represent despotic ones. The enemy retorts that
we are the most formidable and arbitary Empire on the
face of the earth; and there is so much to be said for this
view in consequence of our former conquests that Ameri-
can and Russian public opinion is sorely perplexed about
us. Russell can say, “If you like to persecute me for my
Liberal opinions, persecute away and be damned; I am
not the first of my family to suffer in that good cause; but
if you have any regard for the solidarity of the Alhance,
you will take care to proclaim to the world that England
is still the place where a man can say the thing he wifi &c.
(peroration ad lib.)

This is the best advice I can ^ve in the matter as Rus-
sell’s friend.

Yours faithfully,

G. Bernard Shaw

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109

10 AdelpW Terrace W.C.2
29tli April 1917 [1918]

Dear Bertrand Russell:

I have an uneasy feeling that you v?ill tahe legal advice
on Wednesday, and go into prison for six months for the
sake of allowing your advocate to make a favourable im-
pression on the bench by advancing some ingenious de-
fence, long since worn out in the service of innumerable
pickpockets, which they will be able to dismiss (with a
compliment to the bar) with owl-like gravity.

I see nothing for it but to make a scene by refusing
indignantly to offer any defence at all of a statement that
any man in a free coimtry has a perfect right to make, and
declaring that as you are not an unknown person, and
your case will be reported in every capital from San Fran-
cisco east to Tokyo, and wUl be taken as the measure of
England’s notion of the liberty she professes to be fighting
for, you leave it to the good sense of the bench to save the
reputation of the country from the foUy of its discredited
and panic stricken Government. Or words to that effect.
You will gain nothing by being considerate, and (unlike a
barrister) lose nothing by remembering that a cat may
look at a king, and, d fortiori, a philosopher at a judge.

ever,

G.B.S.

To my brother Fraii Biixton

Jime 3, 1918

Existence here is not disagreeable, but for the fact that
one can’t see one’s friends. The one fact does make it, to
me, very disagreeable — but if I were devoid of affection,
like many middle aged men, I should find nothing to dis-
like. One has no responsibilities, and infinite leisure. My
time passes very fruitfully. In a normal day, I do four
hours philosophical writing, four hours philosophical
reading, and four hours general reading — so you can
understand my wanting a lot of books. I have been read-

no

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

ing Madame Roland’s memoirs and have come to the con-
clusion that she was a very over-rated woman: snobbish,
vain, sentimental, envious — rather a German type. Her
last days before her execution were spent in chronicling
petty social snubs or triumphs of many years back. She
was a democrat chiehy from envy of the noblesse. Prisons
in her day were more cheerful than now: she says if she
were not writing her memoirs she would be painting Sow-
ers or playing an air. Pianos are not provided in Bxixton. '
On the other hand, one is not guillotined on leainng; ■

- which is in some ways an advantage. — During my two
hours’ exercise I reSect upon all manner of things. It is
good to have a time of leisure for reflection and altogether
it is a godsend being here. But I don’t want too much .
godsend!

I am quite happy and my mind is very active. I enjoy
i the sense that the time is fruitful — after giving out all
these last years, reading almost nothing and ^vriting very
' little and having no opportunity for anything civilized, it is
a real delight to get back to a civilized existence. But oh
I shall be glad when it is over! I have given up the bad
habit of imagining the war may be over some day. One
must compare the time with that of the Barbarian inva-
sion. I feel like' Appolinaris Sidoaius — The best one
could be would be to be like St. Augustine. For the nest . ^
1000 years people will look back to the time before 1914 !

as they did in the Dark Ages to the time before the Gauls |
sacked Rome. Queer animal, Man!

Your loving brother,
Bertrand Russell

To Colette

B'eloved I do long for you — I keep thinking of all the
wonderful things we will do together — I think ot jna
we will do when we can go abroad after the war - ong
to ao with you to Spain: to see the great Cathedra m
Burgos, the Velasquez in Madrid — the gloomy Escon ,

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111

from which madmen used to spread ruin over the world
in the days before madness was universal — Seville in
dancing sunlight, all orange groves and fountains — Gra-
nada, where the Moors lingered tiLL Ferdinand and Isa-
bella drove them out — Then we could cross the straits,
as the Moors did, into Morocco — and come back by
Naples and Rome and Siena and Florence and Pisa —
Imagine the unspeakable joy of it — the riot of colour
and beauty — freedom — the sound of Itahan bells —
the strange cries, rich, full-throated, and melancholy with
all the weight of the ages — the great masses of flowers,
inconceivably bright — men with all the beauty of wild
animals, very erect, with bright swiftly-glancing eyes —
and to step out into the morning sunshine, with blue sea
and blue hills — it is aU there for us, some day. I long
for the madness of the South with you.

The other thing I long for with you — which we can
get sooner — is the Atlantic — the Connemara coast —
driving mist — rain — waves that moan on the rocks —
flocks of seabirds with wild notes that seem the very soul
of the restless sadness of the sea — and gleams of sun,
unreal, like glimpses into another world — and wild wild
wind, free and strong and fierce — There, there is life —
and there, I feel, I could stand with you and let our love
commune with the westem-storm — for the same spirit is
in both. My Colette, my Soul, I feel the breath of great-
ness inspiring me tluough our love — I want to put the
spirit of the Atlantic into words — I must, I must, before
I die, find some way to say the essential thing that is in
me, that I have never said yet — a thing that is not love
or hate or pity or scorn, but the very breath of life, fierce,
and coming from far away, bringing into human life the
vastness and the fearful passionless force of non-human
things.

10th August [1918]

If I had been in Gladstone’s place I would never have
let Gordon go to Khartoum, but having let him go I think

112

The- Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

It was foolish not to back him up, because it was bound to
m^nse people. It started the movement of imperiaiism
which led on to the Boer War and thence to the present
horror. It is useless in politics to apply a policy people
won t understand. I remember a talk we had in the woods
once about what Allen would do if he were Prime Zvlinis-
ter, in which this came up.

I didn’t realize that the film job you refused was the
life of Lloyd George. Certainly you had to refuse that.
One might as well have expected St. John to take employ-
ment under Pontius Pilate as ofiBcial biographer of Judas
Iscariot.

What a queer work the Bible is. Abraham (who is a
; pattern of all the virtues) twice over, when he is going
abroad, says to his wife: “Sarah my dear, you are a very
; good-looking person, and the King is very likely to fall in
- love with you. If he thinks I am your husband, he will put

■ me to death, so as to be able to marry you; so you shall
: travel as my sister, which you are, by the way.” On each

' occasion the King does fall in love with her, takes her .
'into his harem, and gets diseased in consequence, so he
u:etums her to Abraham. Meanwhile Abraham has a child
by the maidservant, whom Sarah dismisses into the wilder-
ness with the new-born infant, without Abraham object-
ing. Rum tale.

And God has talks with Abraham at intervals, giving

■ shrewd worldly advice. Then later, when Moses begs to
•see God, God allows him to see his “hind parts.” There is
a terrible fuss, thunder and whirlwind and ah the para-
phernalia, and then all God has to say is that he wants
the Jews to eat imleavened bread at the Passover 'he
says this over and over again, like an old gentleman m
-his dotage. Queer book.

Some texts are very funny. Deut. XXIV, 5: ‘When a
man hath taken a new wife, he shah not go out to war,
neither shah he be charged with any business: but he sh^
be free at home one year, and shah cheer up his we
which he hath taken.” I should never have guessed ‘ cheer
up” was a Bibhcal expression- Here is another reahy ni

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113

spiring text; “Cursed be he that lieth v;ith his mother-
in-law. And all the people shall say, Amen.” St. Paul on
marriage; “I say therefore to the unmarried and widows,
It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they
cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry
than to bum.” This has remained the doctrine of the
Church to this day. It is clear that the Divine purpose in
the text “it is better to marry than to bum” is to make us
aU feel how very dreadful the torments of Hell must be.

Thursday 16th [August 1918]

Dear one, wiU you be very patient and kind with me
the seven weeks that remain, and bear with me if I grow
horrid? It has been difficult after the hopes of release. I
am very tired, very weary. I am of course tortured by
jealousy; I knew I should be. I know so little of your
doings that I probably imagine more than the tmth. I
have grown so nervy from confinement and dwelling on
the future that I feel a sort of vertigo, an impulse to
destroy the happiness in prospect. Will you please quite
calmly ignore anything / do these next weeks in obedience
to this impulse. As yet, I am just able to see that it is mad,
but soon it will seem the only sanity. 1 shall set to work to
hurt you, to make you break with me; I shall say I won’t
see you when I first come out; I shall pretend to have lost
all affection for you. All this is madness — the effect of
jealousy and impatience combined. The p^n of wanting ;
a thing very much at last grows so great that one has to \
try not to want it any longer — Now here it is; I want '
everything as we planned it — Ashford, then Winchelsea
if you can. If later 1 say I don’t want this, please pay no
attention.

To Miss Rinder’*' 30th July, 1918

Many thanks for Spectator review. Is it not odd that
people can in the same breath praise “the free man’s w'or-

* Miss Kinder worked at the No Conscription Fellowship, and was
chiefly concerned with details in the treatment of pacifist prisoners.

114

The Autobiography of Bertrand RusselT

ship” and find fault with my views on the war? The
free man’s worship is merely the expression of the pacifist
outiook when it was new to me. So many people enjoy
rhetorical expressions of fine feelings, but bate to see
people perform the actions that must go with the feelings
if they are genuine. How could any one, approving the
free man’s worship, expect me to join in the trivial self-
righteous moral condemnation of the Germans? All moral
condemnation is utterly against the whole view of life that
was then new to me but is now more and more a part of
my being. I am naturally pugnacious, and am only re-
strained (when I am restrained) by a realisation of the
tragedy of human existence, and the absurdity of spend-
ing our little moment in strife and heat. That I, a funny
little gesticulating animal on two legs, should stand be-
neath the stars and declaim in a passion about my rights
— it seems so laughable, so out of all proportion. Much
better, like Archimedes, to be killed because of absorp-
tion in eternal things. And when once men get away from
their rights, from the strug^e to take up more room in the
world than is their due, there is such a capacity of great-
ness in them. All the loneliness and the pain and the
eternal pathetic hope — the power of love and the appre-
ciation of beauty — the concentration of many ages and
spaces in the mirror of a single mind — these are not
things one would wish to destroy wantonly, for any of the
national ambitions that politicians praise. There is a pos-
sibility in human minds of something mysterious as the
might-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong
■ as Death, a mystic contemplation, the “intellectual love of
God.” Those who have known it cannot believe in wars
any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give
to others what has come to me in this way, I could make
them too feel the futility of fighting. But I do not know
how to communicate it; when I speak, they stare, applau ,
or smile, but do not understand.

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115

To Ottoline Morrell August 8th, 1918

All you write about S.S. [Siegfried Sassoon] is interest- ,
ing and poignant. I know so well the indignation he suffers
from — I have lived in it for months, and on the edge
of it for years. I think that one way of getting over it is to
perceive that others might judge oneself in the same way,
unjustly, but with just as good grounds. Those of us. who
are rich are just. like the young women whose sex flour-
ishes 'bh the blood ofsoldiers. Every motor-tyre is miade
ouf'oTlhe" blood of negroes imder the lash, yet motorists
are not all heartless villains. When we buy wax matches,
we buy a painful and lingering death for those who make
them. . . . War is only the final flower of the capitalist
system, but wiffl’^nTunusuarproIetariat. S.S. sees war,“not
peace, from the point of view of the proletariat. But this
is only politics. The fundamental mistake lies in wrong
expectations, leading to cynicism when they are not real-
ised. Tlonventional morality leads us to expect unselfish- :
ness in decent people. This is an error. Man is an animal
bent on securing food and propagating the species. One ;
way of succeeding in these objects is to persuade others ;
that one is after their welfare — but to be really after any '
welfare but one’s own and one’s children’s is unnatural.

It occurs like sadism and sodomy, but is equally against
nature. A good social system is not to be secured by
making people unselfish, but by making their own vital
impulses fit in with other people’s. This is feasible. Our ;
present system makes self-preservation only possible at <
the expense of others. The system is at fault; but it is a
weakness to be disgusted with people because they aim at
self-preservation. One’s idealism needs to be too robust
for such weaknesses. It doesn’t do to forget or. deny the
animal in man. The God in man will not be visible, as a i
rule, “while the animal is thwarted. Those -who have- pro-
duced stoic philos'ophies have all had enough, to eat and
drink. The sum total of the matter is that one’s idealism
musEbe robust and must fit in with the facts of nature;
and that which is horrible in the actual world is mainly

116

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

due to a bad system, Spinoza, always, is right in all these
things, to my mind.

11th August, 1918 =

It is quite true what you say, that you have never ex-
pressed yourself — but who has, that has anj^g to
express? The things one says are hH unsuccessful attempts
to say something else — something that perhaps by its j
I very nature cannot be said. I know that I have struggled i
f all my life to say something that I never shall learn how
to say. And it is the same with you. It is so with all who
spend their lives in the quest of something elusive, and yet
omnipresent, and at once subtle and infini te. One seeks it
in music, and the sea, and sunsets; at times I have seemed
very near it in crowds when I have been feeling strongly j

what they were feeling; one seeks it in love above all. But ^

if one lets oneself imagine one has found it, some cruel
irony is sure to come and show one that it is not really
found. (I have come nearest to expressing myself in the
chapter on Education in Social Reconstruction. But it is j
a very long way from a really full self-expression. You are !
hindered by timidity.)

The outcome is that one is a ghost, floating through the
world without any -real contact. Even when one feels near- ,
est to other people, something in one seems obstinately to \
belong to God and to refuse to enter into any earthly com-
munion — at least that is how I should express it if I
thought there was a God. It is odd isn’t it? I care passion-
ately for this world, and many things and people in it, and
yet . . . what is it all? There must be something more im-
portant, one feels, though I don’t believe there is. I am
haimted — some ghost, from some extra-mimdane region,
seems always trying to tell me something that I am to
repeat to the world, but I cannot understand the message.

But it is from listening to the ghost that one comes to fed
oneself a ghost. I feel I shall find the truth on my deathbed
land be surrounded by people too stupid to understand ; ;

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117

fussing about medicines instead of searching for wisdom.'
Love and imagination mingled; that seems the main thing:
so far.

Your B.

27th August, 1918

I have been reading Marsh* on Rupert [Brooke]. It
makes me very sad and very indignant. It hurts reading of
all that young world now swept away — Rupert and his
brother and Keeling and lots of others — in whom one
foolishly thought at the time that there was hope for the
world — they were full of life and energy and truth —
Rupert himself loved life and the world — his hatreds
were very concrete, resulting from some quite specific
vanity or jealousy, but in the main he foimd the v/orld
lovable and interesting. There was nothing of humbug in
him. I feel that after the war-mongers had killed his body
in the Dardanelles they have done their best to Idll his

spirit by ’s lies. . . . When wiU people learn the

robustness of truth? I do not know who my biographer
may be, but I should like him to report “with what flour-
ish his nature wUl” something like this: “I was not a sol-
emn stained glass saint, existing only for purposes of
edification; I existed from my own centre, many things
that I did were regrettable, I did not respect respectable
people, and when I pretended to do so it was humbug. I
lied and practised hypocrisy, because if I had not I should
not have been allowed to do my work; but there is no
need to continue the hypocrisy after my death. I hated
hypocrisy and lies : I loved life and real people, and wished
to get rid of the shams that prevent us from loving real
people as they really are, I believed in laughter and spon-
taneity, and trusted to nature to bring out the genuine
good in people, if once genuineness could come to be

* Afterwards Sir Edward. He had been a dose friend of mine when
w'e were undergraduates, but became a civil servant, an admirer of
Winston Churchill and then a high Tory.

118

The AuiobiograpJiy of Bertrand Russell

tolerated.” Marsli goes fauildmg up the respectable lesend,
mal^g the part of youth harder in the future, so far as
lies ia his power — I try so hard not to hate, but I do hate
respectable liars and oppressors and corruptors of youth
— I hate them with all my soul, and the war has "^ven
them a new lease of power. The young were shaking them
off, but they have secured themselves by setting the young
to kill each other. But rage is useless; what is wanted is to
carry over into the new time something of the gaiety and
chdhsed outlook and genial expansive Iotc that was grow-
ing when the war came. It is useless to add one’s quota to
the sum of hate — and so I try to forget those whom I
cannot but hate when I remember them.

Friday, 30 Aug, 18

dearest O:

It was a delight seeing you — tho’ you do not seem in
vex 3 ' good health — and those times are difficult for talk-
ing — letters are really more satisfactoi}' — your letters
are the yery greatest joy to me — To begin with personal
things: I do trust my friends to do e^'erything possible
— ho one ever had such kind and devoted friends ■ — I
am wonderfully touched by what all of you have done;
the people I don’t trust are the philosophers (including
Whitehead). They are cautions and constitution ally timid;
nine out of ten hate me personally (not without reason) ;
they ' consider philosophical research a foolish pursuit,
only excusable when there is money in it. Before tbs war
I fancied that quite a lot of them thought philosophy im-
portant: now I know that most of them resemble Profes-
sors T Tanky and Panky in Eresvhon Revisi ted _

i trast G. Murray, on the whole, over this busines^s. Ir
he gets me a post, I hope it will be not very far rrom
London — not further than Birmingham say. I don't tue
least desire a post except as a way of getmg round
Geddes; what I desire is to do original work m phuos^
phy, but apparently no one ia Government circks cou-

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119

siders that worth doing. Of course a post will interfere to
some extent with research tho’ it need not interfere very
much. I must have some complete holiday when I first
come out of prison. I do not want residence away from
London; I would almost as soon face another term of
imprisonment, for reasons which can’t be explained to
G. Murray. But I am most grateful to him for all the
trouble he is taking. I am not worrying in the least.

How delightful of you to think of Lulworth too. It was
the very place I had been thinking of, before I came upon
it in R. Brooke. I was only there once for a moment on a
walking-tour (1912) and have always wanted to go back.
Do stick to the plan — latish October. We can settle
exactly when, later. It will be glorious.

I wonder whether you quite get at Brett. I am sure her
deafness is the main cause of all that you regret in her.
She wrote a terrible account of what it means to her the
other day in a letter you sent me — I don’t know whether
you read it. If not I will show it you. I am very sorry
about Burnley. It is a blow. There will be no revival, of
pacifism; the war will go on till the Germans admit them-
selves beaten, which I put end of next year. Then we shall
have the League to Enforce Peace, which will require con-
scription everywhere. — Much interested about S.S. and
munition factory; ail experience may be useful. It would
never occur to me to think of it as an “attitude.”

I was sorry to refuse so many books, and also to give
you the trouble of taking so many away. I believe in future
I shall be able to send them by Carter Paterson. My cell
is small and I must keep down the number of books.
Between books and earwigs I have hardly had room to
turn round.

Please thank Miss Bentinck most warmly for the lovely
peaches. I think it very kind of her to send them when
she thinks me so wicked. — I don’t know hov/ long you
are staying at Kirkby Lonsdale — AH that region is so
associated in my mind with Theodore’s death.

Oh won’t it be glorious to be able to walk across fields

120

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

and see the horizon and talk freety and be with friends

It is near enou^ now to -believe it vrill come — I am
settled into this existence, and fairly placid, but only be-
cause it will - end soon. All kinds of delights Soat before
my mind — above all talk, talk, TALK. I never knew how
one can hunger for it — The time here has done me good,
I have read a lot and thought a lot and grown collected,
I am bursting v/ith energy — but I do long for civilization
and cisulized talk — And I long for the SEA and wildness
and wind — I hate being all tidy like a book in a library
where no one reads — Prison is horribly dike that — Im-
agine if you knew y^ou were a delicious book, and some
Jew milli onaire bou^t you and bound you uniform with
a lot of. others and stuck you up in a shelf behind glass,
where you merely illustrated the completeness of his Sys-
tem — and no anarchist was allowed to read you — Tnat
is v/h'at one feels like — but soon now one will be able to
insist on being read. — Goodbye — Much much love —
and endless thanks for your endless kindness. Do stick to
Lulworth —

Your B.

P.S. Letter to Brett elsewhere. Please return common-
place boolcs — Wednesday will do. But I run short of
them unless they are returned.

To '‘Brett” 30. 8 18

My dear Brett:

Thank j^ou for your letter. It is a kindness writing letters
to me when I am here, as they are the only unhampered
contact I can have with other people. I think prison, if it
lasted, would be worse than your fate, but as mine k so
brief it is nothing like as bad as what you have to endure.
I do realize how terrible it is. But I believe there are
things you could do that would make it less trying, small
things mostly. To begin with a big thing; practise the
mental discipline of not thinking how great a misfortune

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121

it is; when your mind begins to run in that direction, stop
it violently by reciting a poem to yourself or thinking of
the multiplication-table or some such plan. For smaller
things; try, as far as possible, not to sit about with people
who are having a general conversation; get in a comer
with a tete-a-tete; make yourself interesting in the first
place by being interested in whoever you are talking with,
until things become easy and natural. I suppose you have
practised lip-reading? Take care of your inner attitude to
people; let it not be satirical or aloof, set yourself to try
and get inside their skins and feel the passions that move
them and the seriousness of the things that matter to them.
Don’t judge people morally; however just one’s judgment,
that is a barren attitude. Most people have a key, fairly
simple; if you find it, you can unlock their hearts. Your
deafness need not prevent this, if you make a point of
tete-^-tete. It has always seemed to me fearfully trying
for you at Garsington to spend so much time in the middle
of t^ and laughter that you cannot understand. Don’t do
more of that than you must. You can be “included in
human life.” But it wants effort, and it wants that you
should give something that people will value. Though
your deafness may make that harder, it doesn’t make it
impossible. Please don’t think aU this very impertinent. I
have only written it because I can’t bear to think how
you suffer.

Poor Mr. Green! Tell him to consult me when hd wants
to make a conquest; I will give him sage advice, which he
evidently needs. — Your picture of the 3 women sounds
most exciting. I do hope it will be glorious. I hope I shall
see you when you return from destroying your fellow-
creatures in Scotland — I sympathize with the Chinese
philosopher who fished without bait, because he liked fish-
ing but^ did not like catching fish. When the Emperor
found him so employed, he made him Prime Minister. But
I fear that won’t happen to me.

Yrs.,

B.R.

122 The A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

The lady to whom the above letter is addressed was a
daughter of Lord Esher but was known to all her friends
by her family name of Brett. At the time when 1 wrote the
above letter, she was spending most of her time at Gar-
sington with the Morrells. She went later to New Mexico
in the wake of D. H. Lawrence.

To Ottoline Morrell 31/8/18

(For any one whom it may interest) ;

-There never was such a place as prison for crowding
images — one after another they come upon me — early
morning in the Alps, with the smeU of aromatic pines and
high pastures glistening with dew — the lake of Garda as
one first sees it coming down out of the mountains, just a
glimpse far below, dancing and gleaming in the sunlight
like, the eyes of a laugltog, mad, Spanish gypsy — thunder-
storm in the Mediterranean, with a dark violet sea, and
the mountains of Corsica in sunshine far beyond — the
Scilly Isles in the setting sim, enchanted and unreal, so
that you think they must have vanished before you can
reach them, looking like the Islands of the Blest, not to be
achieved during this mortal life — the sraeU of the bog
myrtle in Skye — memories of sunsets long ago, all the
way back into childhood — I can hear now as if it were
yesterday the street-cry of a man in Paris selling “arti-
chaux verts et beaux” 24 years ago almost to a day. Quite
from childhood I remember a certain row of larches after^
rain, with a raindrop at the end of eve^ twig — and I can
hear the wind in the tree-tops in midnight woods on sum-
mer nights — everything free or beautiful comes into my
thoughts sooner or later. What is the use of shutting up
the body, seeing that the mind remains free? And outside
my own fife, I have lived, while I have been here, in Brazil
and China and Tibet, in the French Revolution, in the
souls of animals and even of the lowest animals. In such
adventures I have forgotten the prison in which the world
is keeping itself at the moment: I am free, and the world
shall 1^.

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123

September 4th, 1918

Dearest O:

It is dreadful the killing of the people who might have
made a better future. As for me: I am sure it is a “sure
firm growth.” It is two quite distinct things: some quite
good technical ideas, which have come simply because
they were due, like cuckoos in April; and a way "of feeling
towards life and the world, which I have been groping
after especially since the war started, but also since a
certain moment in a churchyard near Broughton, when
you told me to make a place for wildness in my morality,
and I asked you what you meant, and you explained. It
has been very difficult; my instinctive morahty was so
much that of self-repression. I used to be afraid of myself
and the darker side of my instincts; now I am not. You
began that, and the war completed it.

The ending of the War enabled me to avoid several un-
pleasant things which would otherwise have happened to
me. The military age was raised in 1918, and for the first
time I became liable to military service, which I should
of course have had to refuse. They called me up for medi-
cal examination, but the Government with its utmost
efforts was unable to find out where I was, having for-
gotten that it had put me in prison. If the War had con-
tinued I should very soon have found myself m prison
again as a conscientious objector. From a financial point
of view also the ending of the War was very advantageous
to me. While I WcLS writing Principia Mathematica I felt
justified in living on inherited money, though I did not feel
justified in keeping an additional sum of capital that I
inherited from my grandmother. I gave away this sum in
its entirety, some to the University of Cambridge, some to
Newnham College, and the rest to various educational
objects. After parting with the debentures that I gave to
Eliot, I was left with only about £. 100 a year of unearned
money, which I could not get rid of as it was in my mar-
riage settlement. This did not seem to matter, as I had
become capable of earning money by my books. In prison,
however, while I was allowed to write about mathe-
matics, I was not allowed to write the sort of book by
which I could make money. I should therefore have been
nearly penniless when I came out but for the fact that
Sanger and some other friends got up a philosophical lec-
tureship for me in London. With the ending of the War I
was again able to earn money by writing, and I have never
since been in serious financial difficulties except at times
in America.

The ending of the War made a difference in my rela-
tions with Colette. During the War we had many things

127

128

The AutohiogTaphy of Bertrand Rassell

fo do in common, and we stared aH the veiy poweifcl
emotions connected with the War, After the War thinss
became more difficult and more strained. From time to
time we would part for ever, but repeatedly these part-
ings proved unexpectedly temporary. During the three
summer months of 1919, littlewood "(the mathematician)
and I rented a farmhouse on a hill about a mile outside
Lulworth. There were a good many rooms in this farm-
house, and we had a series of visitors throu^out the
whole summer. The place was extraordinaiiiy beautifcl,
with wide views along the coast. The bathing was good,
and there were places where littlewood could exhibit his
prowess as a climber, an art in which he was very expert
Meantime I had been becoming interKted in my second
wife. I met her first in 1916 throng her Mend Dorothy
Wrinch, Both were at Girton, and Dorothy Wrinch was
a pupil of mine. She arranged in the summer of 1916 a
two days’ walk with herself, Dora Black, Jean 2^cod, and
me, Jean Nicod was a young French philosopher, also a
pupil of mine, who had escaped the War throu^ being
consumptive. (He died of phthisis in 1924.) He was one
of the most delightful people that I have ever known, at
once very gentle and immensely clever. He had a t}pe of
whimsical humour that delight^ me. Once I was saying
to bim that people who learned philosophy should be fil-
ing to understand the world, and not only, as in univer-
sities, the s}'Stems of previous philosophers. “Yes,” hs
replied, ‘Tint the systems are so much more interesting
than the world.” Dora Black, whom I had not seen before,
interested me at once. We spent the evening at Share, and
to beguile the time after dinner, I started by asking every-
body what they most desired in life. I cannot remember
what Doroth}' and hficod said; I said that I should like to
disappear like the msn in Arnold Bennetfs Buned AVtve.
prowded I could be sure of discovering a widow in Putney
as he did. Dora, to my surprise, said that she wanted to
marry and have children. Until that moment I had sup-
posed that no clever young woman would confess to so

simple a desire, and I concluded that she must possess
exceptional sincerity. Unlike the rest of us she was not,
at that time, a thorough-going objector to the War.

In June 1919, at Dorothy Wrinch’s suggestion, I in-
vited her to come to tea with Allen and me at the flat that
I shared with him in Battersea. She came, and we em-
barked on a heated argument as to the rights of fathers.
She said that, for her part, if she had children she would
consider them entirely her own, and would not be disposed
to recognize the father’s rights. I replied hotly: “Well,
whoever I have children by, it won’t be you!” As a result
of this argument, I dined with her next evening, and at
the end of the evening we arranged that she should come
to Lulworth for a long visit. I had on that day had a more
than usually definitive parting from Colette, and I did not
suppose that I should ever see her again. However, the
day after Littlewood and I got to Lulworth I had a tele-
gram from Colette to say that she was on her way down
in a hired car, as there was no train for several hours.
Fortunately, Dora was not due for some days, but
throughout the summer I had difficulties and awkward-
nesses in preventing their times from overlapping.

I wrote the above passage in 1931, and in 1949 I
showed it to Colette. Colette wrote to me, enclosing two
letters that I had written to her in 1919, which showed me
how much I had forgotten. After reading them I remem-
bered that throughout the time at Lulworth my feelings
underwent violent fluctuations, caused by fluctuations in
Colette’s behaviour. She had three distinct moods; one of
ardent devotion, one of resigned determination to part for
ever, and one of mild indifference. Each of these produced
its own echo in me, but the letters that she enclosed
showed me that the echo had been more resounding than
I had remembered. Her letter and mine show the emo-
tional rmreliability of memory. Each knew about the other,
but questions of tact arose which were by no means ea.sy.
Dora and I became lovers when she came to Luhvorth,
and the parts of the summer during whicii she was there

130 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

were extraordinarily delightful. The chief difficulty with
Colette had been that she was unwilling to have children,
and that I felt if I was ever to have children I could not
put it ofi any longer. Dora was entirely willing to have
children, with or without marriage,- and from tlTe first we
used no precautions. She was a little disappointed to find
that almost immediately our relations took on all the char-
acter of marriage, and when I told her that I should be
glad to , get a divorce and martyr her, she burst into tears,
feeling, I think, that it meant the end of independence
and light-heartedness. But the feeling we had for each
other seemed to have that kin d of stability' that made any
less serious relation impossible. Those who have knov,Ti
her only in her public capacity would scarcely credit the
quality' of elfin charm which she possessed whenever the
sense of responsibility did not weigh her down. Bathing
by moonlight, or running with bare feet on the de^sy
grass, she won my imagiaation as completely as on her
serious side she appealed to. my desire for parenthood
and my sense of social responsibility.

Our days at Lulworth were a balance of delicious out-
door activities, especiall}' sw'imming, and general conver-
sations as good as any that I have ever had. The general
theorj' of relatiwty was in those days rather new, and
Littlewood and I used to discuss it endlessly. We used to
debate whether the distance from us to the post-office
was or was not the same as the distance from the post-
office to us, though on this matter we never reached a
conclusion. The eclipse expedition which confirmed Ein-
stein’s prediction as to the bending of light occurred dur-
ing this time, and Littlewood got a telegram from Edding-
ton telling him that the result was what Einstein said it
should be.

As always happens w'hen a party of people who know
each other weU is assembled in the countr)', we came to
have collective jokes from w'hich casual wsitors were ex-
cluded. Sometimes the claims of politeness made these
jokes quite painful. There was a lady called Mrs. Fiske

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131

Warren -whom I had known when I lived at Ba^ey Wood,
rich and beautiful and intellectual, highly intellectual in
fact. It was for her unofficial benefit that Modem Greats
were first invented. Carefully selected dons taught her
Greek philosophy without demanding a knowledge of
Greek. She was a lady of deep mystical intuitions, and an
admirer of Blake. I had stayed at her country house in
Massachusetts in 1914, and had done my best to live up
to her somewhat rarefied atmosphere. Her husband, whom
I had never met, was a fanatical believer in Single Tax,
and was in the habit of buying small republics, such as
Andorra, with a view to putting Henry George’s principles
into practice. While we were at Lulworth, she sent me a
book of her poems and a book of her husband’s on his
hobby. At the same time a letter came from her husband,
who was in London, saying that he wished to see me. I
replied that it was impossible as I was not in London. He
telegraphed back to say that he would come to lunch Mon-
day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, which-
ever suited me, although to do so he had to leave London
at six in the morning. I chose Friday, and began hastily
cutting the pages of his wife’s poems. I found a poem
headed “To One Who Sleeps by My Side,” in which
occurred the line: “Thou art too full of this world’s meat
and wine.” I read the poem to the company, and called
up the housekeeper, giving orders that the meal should be
plentiful and that there should be no deficiency of alcohol.
He turned out to be a lean, ascetic, anxious character, too
earnest to waste any of the moments of life here below in
jokes or frivolities. When we were aU assembled at lunch,
and I began to offer him food and drink, he replied in a
sad voice: “No, thank you. I am a vegetarian and a tee-
tot^er.” Littlewood hastily made a very feeble joke at
which we aU laughed much more than its merits war-
ranted.

Summer, the sea, beautiful country, and pleasant com-
pany, combined with love and the ending of the War to
produce almost ideally perfect circumstances. At the end

132

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

of the summer I went back to Clifiord Allen’s flat in Bat-
tersea, and Dora went to Paris to pursue the researches
which she was making, in her capacity of Fellow of Gir-
ton, into the beg i n nin gs of French free-thinking philoso-
phy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I still saw
her occasionally, sometimes in London, sometimes in
Paris. I was still seeing Colette, and was in a mood of
indecision.

f At Christmas Dora and I met at the Hague, to which
' place I went to see my friend, Wittgenstein; I ^ew Witt-
\genstein first at Cambridge before the War. He was an
Austrian, and his father was enormously rich. Wittgen-
stein had intended to become an engineer, and for that
purpose had gone to Manchester. Through reading mathe-
matics he became interested in the principles of mathe-
matics, and asked at Manchester who there was who
worked at this subject. Somebody mentioned my name,
and he took up Ms residence at Trinity. He was perhaps
the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as
traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and
dominating. He had a kind of purity wMch I have never
known equalled except by G. E, Moore. I remember tak-
ing him once to a meeting of the Aristotelian Society, at
wMch there were various fools whom I treated politely.
When we came away he raged and stormed against my
moral degradation in not telling these men what fools they
were. His life was turbulent and troubled, and Ms per-
sonal force was extraordinary. He Hved on milk and vege-
tables, and I used to feel as Mrs. Patrick Campbell did
about Shaw: “God help us if he should ever eat a beef-
steak.” He used to come to see me every evening at
midmght, and pace up and down my room like a vild
beast for three' hours in agitated silence. Once I said to
him: “Are you thinking about logic or about your sins?
“Both,” he replied, and continued his pacing. I did not
like to suggest that it was time for bed, as it seemed prob-
able both to him and me that on leaving me he would
commit suicide. At the end of Ms first term at Trimty, he

Ritssia

133

came to me and said: “Do you think I am an absolute
idiot?” I said: “Why do you want to know?” He replied:
“Because if I am I shall become an aeronaut, but if I am
not I shall become a philosopher.” I said to him: “My
dear fellow, I don’t know whether you are an absolute
idiot or not, but if you will write me an essay during the
vacation upon any philosophical topic that interests you,
I will read it and tell you.” He did so, and brought it to
me at the beginning of the next term. As soon as I read
the first sentence, I became persuaded that he was a man
of genius, and assured him that he should on no account
become an aeronaut. At the beginning of 1914 he came to
me in a state of great agitation and said: “I am leaving
Cambridge, I am leaving Cambridge at once.” “Why?” I
asked. “Because my brother-in-law has come to live in
London, and I can’t bear to be so near him.” So he spent
the rest of the winter in the far north of Norway. In early
days I once asked G. E. Moore what he thought of Witt-
genstein. “I think very well of him,” he said, I asked why,
and he replied: “Because at my lectures he looks puzded,
and nobody else ever looks puzded.”

When the War came, Wittgenstein, who was very pa-
triotic, became an officer in the Austrian Army. For the
first few months it was stiU possible to write to him and to
hear from him, but before long this became impossible,
and I knew nothing of him imtil about a month after the
Armistice, when I got a letter from him written from
Monte Cassino, saying that a few days after the Armistice
he had been taken prisoner by the Italians, but fortunately
with his manuscript. It appeared that he had written a
book in the trenches, and wished me to read it. He was the
kind of man who would never have noticed such small
matters as bursting shells when he was thinking about
logic. He sent me the manuscript of his book, which I
discussed with Nicod and Dorothy Wrinch at Lul worth.
It w^ the book which was subsequently published under
the title Tractatm Logico-Philosophicus. It was obviously
important to see him and discuss it by word of mouth, and

134

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

it seemed best to meet in a neutral country. We therefore
decided upon the Hague. At this point, however, a sur-
prising difficulty arose. His father, just before the outbreak
of the War, had transferred his whole fortune to Holland,
and was therefore just as rich at the end as at the begin-
ning. Just about at the time of the Armistice his father had
died, and Wittgenstein inherited the bulk of his fortune.
He came to the conclusion, however, that money is a nui-
sance to a philosopher, so he gave every penny of it to his
brother and sisters. Consequently he was unable to pay
the fare from Vienna to the Hague, and was far too proud
to accept it from me. At last a solution of this difficult)’
was found. The furniture and books which he had had at
Cambridge were stored there, and he expressed a willing-
ness to seU them to me. I took the advice of the Cam-
bridge furniture dealer in whose care they were as to their
value, and bought them at the figure he suggested. They
were in fact worth far more than he supposed, and it was
the best bargain I ever made. This transaction made it
possible for Wittgenstein to come to the Hague, where
we spent a week arguing his book line by line, while Dora
went to the Public Library to read the invectives of Sahna-
tius against Milton.

Wittgenstein, though a logician, was at once a patriot
and a pacifist. He had a very high opinion of the Rus-
sians, with whom he had fraternized at the Front. He told
me that once in a village in Galicia, where for the moment
he had nothing to do, he found a book-shop, and it oc-
curred to him that there might be a book in it. There was
just one, which was Tolstoy on the Gospels. He therefore
bought it, and was much impressed by it. He became for
a time very religious, so much so that he began to consider
me too wicked to associate with. In order to make a living
he became an elementary school-master in a country vil-
lage in Austria, called Trattenbach. He would w'rite to me
saying: “The people of Trattenbach are very wicked.” I
would reply: “Yes, aU men are very wicked.” He would
reply: “True, but the men of Trattenbach are more wicked

Russia

135

than the men of other places.” I replied that my logical
sense revolted against such a proposition. But he had some
justification for his opinion. The peasants refused to sup-
ply him with milk because he taught their children sums
that were not about money. He must have suffered during
this time hunger and considerable privation, though it v/as
very seldom that he could be induced to say anything
about it, as he had the pride of Lucifer. At last his sister
decided to build a house, and employed him as architect.
This gave him enough to eat for several years, at the end
of which time he returned to Cambridge as a don, where
Clive Bell’s son wrote poems in heroic couplets against
him. He was not always easy to fit into a social occasion.
Whitehead described to me the first time that Wittgenstein
came to see him. He was shown into the drawing-room
during afternoon tea. He appeared scarcely aware of the
presence of Mrs. Whitehead, but marched up and down
the room for some time in silence, and at last said explo-
sively: “A proposition has two poles. It is apb." White-
head, in telling me, said: “I naturally asked what are a and
b, but I found that I had said quite die wrong thing, ‘o and
b are indefinable,’ Wittgenstein answered in a voice of
thunder.”

Like all great men he had his weaknesses. At the height
of his mystic ardour in 1922, at a time when he assured
me with great earnestness that it is better to be good than
clever, I .fo und him terrified of 'W5Sps,~ and, because of
bugs, vmabie to stay another night in lod^gs we had
found in Innsbruck. After my travels in Russia and China,
I was inured to small matters of that sort, but not all his
conriction that the things of this world are of no account
could enable him to endure insects with patience. In spite
of such slight foibles, however, he was an impressive
human being.

I spent almost the whole of the year 1920 in travelling.
At Easter, I was invited to lecture at Barcelona at the
Catalan University there. From Barcelona I went to Ma-
jorca, where I stayed at SoUcr. Tlic old innkeeper (the

136

The Autobiography of Bertrand Rtissell

oiJy one in the place) informed me that, as he was a
widower, he could not give me any food, but I was at
liberty to walk in his garden and pluck his oranges when-
ever I pleased. He said this with such a coiuteous air that
I felt constrained to express my profound gratitude. In
Majorca, I began a great quarrel which raged for many
months through many changes of latitude and longitude.

I was planning to go to Russia, and Dora wanted to go
with me. I maintained that, as she had never taken much
interest in politics, there was no good reason why she
should go, and, as typhus was raging, I should not feel
justified in exposing her to the risk. We were both ada-
mant, and it was an issue upon which compromise was
impossible. I still think I was right, and she still thinks she
was right.

Soon after returning from Majorca, my opportunity
came. A Labour deputation was going to Russia, and was
willing that I should accompany it. The Government con-
sidered my application, and after causing me to be inter-
viewed by H. A. L. Fisher, they decided to let me go. The
Soviet Government was more difficult to persuade, and
when I was already in Stockholm on the way, Litvinov
was stUl refusing permission, in spite of our having been
fellow-prisoners in.Biixton. However, the objections of the
Soviet Government were at last overcome. We were a
curious party. Mrs. Snowden, Clifford Allen, Robert Wil-
liams, Tom Shaw, an enormously fat old Trade Unionist
named Ben Turner, who was very helpless without his
wife and used to get Clifford Allen to take his boots off
for him, Haden Guest as medical attendant, and several
Trade Union officials. In Petrograd, where they put the
imperial motorcar at our disposal, Mrs. Snowden used to
drive about enjoying its luxury and expressing pity for the
“poor Czar.” Haden Guest was a theosophist with a fiery
temper and a considerable libidp. He and Mrs. Snowden
were very anti-Bolshevik. Robert WiUiams, I found, was
very happy in Russia, and was the only one of our party
who made speeches pleasing to the Soviet Govemmenu

Russia

137

He always told them that revolution was imminent in En-
gland, and they made much of him. I told Lenin that he
was not to be trusted, and the very next year, on Black
Friday, he ratted. Then there was Charlie Buxton, whose
pacifism had led him to become a Quaker. When I shared
a cabin with him, he would beg me to stop in the middle
of a sentence in order that he might practise silent prayer.
To my surprise, his pacifism did not lead him to think ill
of the Bolsheviks.

For my part, the time I spent in Russia was one of con-
tinually increasing nightmare. I have said in print what, on
reflection, appeared to me to be the truth, but I have not
expressed the sense of utter horror which overwhelmed
me while I was there. Cruelty, poverty, suspicion, persecu-
tion, formed the very air we breathed. Our conversations
were continually spied upon. In the middle of the night
one would hear shots, and know that idealists were being
killed in prison. There was a hypocritical pretence of
equality, and everybody was called “tovarisch,” but it
was amazing how differently this word could be pro-
nounced according as the person addressed was Lenin or a
lazy servant. On one occasion in Petrograd (as it was
called) four scarecrows came to see me, dressed in rags,
with a fortnight’s beard, filthy nails, and tangled hair.
They were the foiu most eminent poets of Russia. One of
them was allowed by the Government to make his liwng
by lecturing on rhythmics, but he complained that they
insisted upon his teaching this subject from a Marxian
point of view, and that for the life of him he could not see
how Marx came into the matter.

Equally ragged were the Mathematical Society of Petro-
grad. I went to a meeting of this society at which a man
read a paper on non-EucIidean geometry. I could not
understand anythihg of if except die ’formulae which he
wrote on the blackboard, but these were quite the right
sort of formulae, so that one may assume the paper to
have been competent. Never, in England, have I seen
tramps who looked so abject as the mathematicians of

138 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Petrbgrad. I was not aHowed to see Kropotkin, who not
long afterwards died. The governing classes had a self-
confidence quite as great as that produced by Eton and
Oxford. They believed that their formulae would solve all
difficulties. A few of the naore intelligent knew that this
was not the case, but did not dare to say so. Once, in a
tete-a-tete conversation with a scientific physician named
Zalkind, he began to say that climate has a great effect upon
character, but instantly he pulled himself up short, and
said: “Of course that is not really the case; only economic
circumstances affect character.” I felt .that everything that
I valued, in hmnan life was being destroyed in the interests
of a glib and narrow philosophy, and that in the process
untold misery was being inflicted upon many millions of
people. With every day that I spent in Russia my horror
increased, until I lost aU power of balanced judgment.

From Petrograd we went to Moscow, which is a very
beautiful city, and architecturally more interesting than
Petrograd because of the Oriental influence. I was amused
by various small ways in which Bolshevik love of mass-
production showed itself. The main meal of the day oc-
curred at about four o’clock in the afternoon, and con-
tained among other ingredients the heads of fishes. I never
discovered what happened to their bodies, though I sup-
pose, they were eaten by the peoples’ Komissars. The river
Moskwa was chock full of fish, but people were not al-
lowed to catch them, as no up-to-date mechanical method
had yet been found to supersede the rod and line. The city
was almost starving, but it was felt that fishes’ heads,
caught by trawlers, were better than fishes’ bodies caught
by primitive methods.

We went down the Volga on a steamer, and Qifford
Allen became extremely ill with pneumonia, which revived
the tuberculosis from which he had previously suffered.
We were all to leave the boat at Saratov, but Allen was too
ill to be moved, so Haden Guest, Mrs. Snowden and I
remained on the boat to look' after him, while it travelled
on to Astrakhan. He had a very small cabin, and the heat

Russia

139

was inconceivable. The windows had to be kept tight shut
on account of the malarial mosquitoes, and Allen suffered
from violent diarrhoea. We had to take turns nursing him,
for although there was a Russian nurse on board, she was
afraid to sit with him at night for fear that he might die
and his ghost might seize her.

Astrakhan seemed to me more like hell than anything I
had ever imagined. The town water-supply was taken
from the same part of the river into which ships shot their
refuse. Every street had stagnant water which bred mil-
lions of mosquitoes; every year one third of the inhab-
itants had malaria. There was no drainage system, but a
vast mountain of excrement at a prominent place in the
middle of the town. Plague was endemic. There had re-
cently been fighting in the civil war against Denikin. The
flies were so numerous that at meal-time a table-cloth had
to be put over the food, and one had to insert one’s hand
underneath and snatch a mouthful quickly. The instant
the table-cloth was put down, it became completely black
with flies, so that nothing of it remained visible. The place
is a great deal below sea-level, and the temperature was
120 degrees in the shade. The leading doctors of the place
were ordered by the Soviet officials who accompanied us t
to hear what Haden Guest had to say about combating
malaria, a matter on which he had been engaged for the
British Army in Palestine. He gave them an admirable
lecture on the subject, at the end of which they said: “Yes,
we know all that, but it is very hot.” I fancy that the next
time the Soviet officials came that way those doctors were
probably put to death, but of this I have no knowledge. Tlie
most eminent of the doctors in question examined Clif-
ford Allen and informed me that he could not possibly live
two days. When about a fortnight later we got him out to
Reval, the doctor who examined him there again told
me that he could not live two days, but by this lime I had
come to know something of Allen’s determination to live,
and I was less alarmed. He survived for many years, and
became an ornament of the House of Lords.

140

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

After I returned to England I endeavoured to express
my changing moods, before starting and while in Russia,
in the shape of antedated letters to Colette, the last of
which I subsequently published in my book about China.
As they express my moods at that time better than I can
do by anything written now, I will insert them here;

London,

April 24, 1920

The daj' of my departure comes near. I have a thou-
sand things to do, yet I sit here idle, thinkin g useless
thoughts, the irrelevant, rebellious thoughts that well-
regulated people never think, the thoughts that one
hopes to banish by work, but that themselves banish
work instead. How I envy those who always believe
what they believe, who are not troubled by deadness
and indifference to all that makes the framework of
their lives. I have had the ambition to be of some use in
the world, to achieve something notable, to give man-
kind new hopes. And now that the opportunity is near,
it all seems dust and ashes. As I look into the future,
my disillusioned gaze sees only strife and stfll more
strife, rasping cruelty, tyranny, terror and slavish sub-
mission. The men of my dreams, erect, fearless and
generous, will they ever exist on earth? Or will men
go on fighting, killing and torturing to the end of time,
till the earth grows cold and the dying sun can no
longer quicken their futile frenzy? I cannot tell. But I
do know the despair in my soul. I know the great
loneliness, as I wander through the world like a ghost,
speaking in tones that are not heard, lost as if I had
fallen from some other planet.

The old struggle goes on, the struggle betw'een little
pleasures and the great pain. I know that the little
pleasures are death and yet — I am so tired, so vep^
tired. Reason and emotion fight a deadly war within
me, and leave me no energy for outward action. I
know that no good thing is achieved without fighting,
without ruthlessness and organization and discipline.
I know that for collective action the individual must

Russia

141

be turned into a machine. But in these things, though
my reason may force me to believe them, I can find
no inspiration. It is the individual human soul that I
love — in its loneliness, its hopes and fears, its quick
impulses and sudden devotions. It is such a long jour-
ney from this to armies and States and officials; and
yet it is only by making this long journey that one can
avoid a useless sentimentalism.

All through the rugged years of the War, I dreamed
of a happy day after its end, when I should sit with
you in a surmy garden by the Mediterranean, filled
with the scent of heliotrope, surrotmded by cypresses
and sacred groves of ilex — and there, at last, I should
be able to tell you of my love, and to touch the joy
that is as real as pain. TTie time is come, but I have
other tasks, and you have other desires; and to me, as
I sit brooding, all tasks seem vain and all desires
foolish.

Yet it is not upon these thoughts that I shall act

Petrograd
May 12, 1920

I am here at last, in this city which has filled the
world with history, which has inspired the most deadly
hatreds and the most poignant hopes. Will it yield me
up its secret? Shall I learn to know its inmost soul?
Or shall I acquire only statistics and official facts? Shall
I understand what I see, or will it remain an external
bewildering show? In the dead of night we reached the
empty station, and our noisy motors panted through
the sleeping streets. From my window, when I arrived,
I looked out across the Neva to the fortress of Peter
and Paul. The river gleamed in the early northern
dawn; the scene was beautiful beyond all words, magi-
cal, eternal, suggestive of ancient wisdom. “It is won-
dei^l,” I said to the Bolshevik who stood beside me.
“Yes,” he replied, “Peter and Paul is now not a prison,
but the Army Headquarters.”

I shook myself. “Come, my friend,” I thought, “you
are not here as a tourist, to sentimentalize over sun-
rises and sunsets and buildings starred by Baedeker;

142

The Autobiograplry of Bertrand Russell

you are here as a social investigator, to study eco-
nomic and political facts. Come out of your dream,
forget the eternal things. The men you have come
among would tell you they are only the fancies of a
bourgeois with too much leisure, and can you be sure
they are an5dhing more?” So I came back into the
conversation, and tried to learn the mechanism for
buying an umbrella at the Soviet Stores, which proved
as difficult as fathoming the ultimate mysteries.

The twelve hours that I have so far spent on Russian
SOU have chiefly afforded material for the imp of
irony. I came prepared for physical hardship, discom-
fort, dirt, and hunger, to be made bearable by an at-
mosphere of splendid hope for ma nkin d. Our conunu-
nist comrades, no doubt rightly, have not judged us
worthy of such treatment. Since crossing the frontier
.yesterday afternoon, I have made two feasts and a
good breakfast, several first-class cigars, and a night
in a sumptuous bedroom of a palace where aU the
luxury of the ancien rSgime has been preserved. At the
stations on the way, regiments of soldiers filled the
platform, and the plebs was kept carefully out of sight
It seems I am to live amid the pomp surrounding the
government of a great military Empire. So I must
readjust my mood. Cynicism is called for, but I am
strongly moved, and find cynicism difficult. I come
back etemaUy to the same question: What is the secret
of fbis passionate country'? Do the Bolsheviks know
its secret? Do they even suspect that it has a secret? I
wonder.

Petrograd,

May 13, 1920

This is a strange v/orld into which I have come, a
world of dying beauty and harsh life. I am troubled
at ever}' moment by fundamental questions, the ter-
rible insoluble questions that wise men never ask.
Empty palaces and full eating-houses, ancient splen-
dours destroyed, or mummified in museums, while the
sprawling self-confidence of returned Americanixed
refugees spreads throughout the city. Every'thing is to

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143

be systematic: there is to be organization and distribu-
tive justice. The same education for all, the same
clothes for all, the same kind of houses for all, the
same books for all, and the same creed for all — it is
very just, and leaves no room for envy, except of the
fortunate victims of injustice in other countries.

And then I begin upon the other side of the argu-
ment. I remember Dostoevski’s Crime and Punish-
ment, Gorki’s In the World, Tolstoy’s Resurrection.
I reflect upon the destruction and cruelty upon which
the ancient splendour was built: the poverty, drunken-
ness, prostitution, in which life and health were use-
lessly wasted; I think of all the lovers of freedom who
suffered in Peter and Paul; I remember the knoutings
and pogroms and massacres. By hatred of the old, I
become tolerant of the new, but I cannot like the new
on its own account.

Yet I reproach myself for not liking it. It has all the
characteristics of vigorous beginnings. It is ugly and
brutal, but full of constructive energy and faith in the
value of what it is creating. In creating a new ma-
chinery for social life, it has no time to think of any-
thing beyond machinery. When the body of the new so-
ciety has been built, there will be time enough to think
about giving it a soul — at least, so I am assured. “We
have no time for a new art or a new religion,” they tell
me with a certain impatience. I wonder whether it is
possible to build a body first, and then afterwards in-
ject the requisite amount of soul. Perhaps — but I
doubt it.

I do not find any theoretical answer to these ques-
tions, but my feelings answer with terrible insistence.

I am infinitely unhappy in this atmosphere — stifled
by its utilitarianism, its indifference to love and beauty
and the life of impulse. I cannot give that importance
to man’s merely animal needs that is given here by
those in power. No doubt that is because I have not
spent half my life in hunger and want, as many of
them have. But do hunger and want necessarily bring
wisdom? Do they make men more, or less, capable of
conceiving the ideal society that should be the inspira-
tion of every reformer? I carmot avoid the belief that

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

they narrow the horizon more than they enlarge it.
But an uneasy doubt remains, and I am tom in

two. . . .

On the Volga.

June 2, 1920.

Our boat travels on, day after day, through an un-
known and mysterious land. Our company are noisy,
gay, "quarrelsome, full of facile theories, with glib ex-
planations of everything, persuaded that there is noth-
ing they cannot understand and no human destiny
outside the purview of their system. One of us lies at
death’s door,* fighting a grim battle with weakness and
terror and the indifference of the strong, assailed day
and night by the sounds of loud-voiced love-making
and trivial laughter. And aU around us lies a great
silence, strong as Death, unfathomable as the heav-
ens. It seems that none have leisure to hear the silence,
yet it calls to me so insistently that I grow deaf to the
harangues of propagandists and the endless informa-
tion of the well-informed.

Last night, very late, our boat stopped in a desolate
spot where there were no houses, but only a great
sandbank, and beyond it a row of poplars with the
rising moon behind them. In silence I went ashore,
and fovmd on the sand a strange assemblage of human
beings, half-nomads, wandering from some remote re-
gion of famine, each family huddled together sur-
rounded by all its belongings, some sleeping, others
silently making small fires of twigs. The flickering
flames lighted up gnarled bearded faces of wild men,
strong, patient primitive women, and children as sedate
and slow as their parents. Human beings they un-
doubtedly were, and yet it would have been far easier
for me to grow intimate with a dog or a cat or a horse
than with one of them. I knew that they would wait
there day after day, perhaps for weeks, until a boat
came in which they could go to some distant place

* Clifford Allen.

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145

where they had heard — falsely perhaps — that the
earth was more generous than in the country they had
left. Some would die by the way, all would suffer
hunger and thirst and the scorching midday sun, but
their sufferings would be dumb. To me they seemed to
typify the very soul of Russia, unexpressive, inactive
from despair, unheeded by the little set of westemizers
who make up all the parties of progress or reaction.
Russia is so vast that the articulate few are lost in it as
man and his planet are lost in interstellar space. It is
possible, I thought, that the theorists may increase the
misery of the many by trying to force them into ac-
tions contrary to their primeval instincts, but I could
not believe that happiness was to be brought to them
by a gospel of industrialism and forced labour.

Nevertheless, when morning came, I resumed the
interminable discussions of the materialistic concep-
tion of history and the merits of a truly popular gov-
ernment. Those with whom I discussed had not seen
the sleeping wanderers, and would not have been in-
terested if they had seen them, since they were not
material for propaganda. But something of that pa-
tient silence had communicated itself to me, some-
thing lonely and unspoken remained in my heart
through all the comfortable familiar intellectual talk.
And at last I began to feel that all politics are inspired
by a grinning devil, teaching the energetic and quick-
witted to torture submissive populations for the profit
of pocket or power or theory. As we journeyed on, fed
by food extracted from the peasants, protected by an
army recruited from among their sons, I wondered
what we had to give them in return. But I found no
answer. From time to time I heard their sad songs or
the haunting music of the balalaika; but the sound
mingled with the great silence of the steppes, and left
me with a terrible questioning pain in which occidental
hopefulness grew pde.

Sverdlov, the Minister of Transport (as we should call
him), who was with us on the steamer on the Volga, was
extraordinarily kind and helpful about Allen’s illness. We

146

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

came back on the boat as far as Saratov, and from there
to Reval, we travelled all the way in the carriage that
had belonged to the Czar’s daughters, so that Men did
not have to be moved at any stage. If one might judge
from the carriage, some of fteir habits must have been
curious. There was a luxurious sofa of which the seat
lifted up, and one then discovered three holes in a row
suitable for sanitary purposes. At Moscow on the way
home Haden Guest and I had a furious quarrel with Chi-
cherin because he would not allow Allen to leave Moscow
until he had been examined by two Soviet doctors, and at
first he said that he could not get the Soviet doctors to see
him for another two days. At the height of the quarrel, on
a staircase, I indulged in a shouting match because Chi-
cherin had been a friend of my Uncle RoUo and I had
hopes of him. I shouted that I should denounce him as a
murderer. It seemed to us and to Allen vital to get him
out of Russia as soon as possible, and we felt that tins
order to wait for Soviet doctors would endanger his life.
At last a compromise was effected by which the doctors
saw him at once. One of them was called Popoff; the name
of the other I have forgotten. The Soviet Government
thought that Allen was friendly to them and that Guest
and Mas. Snowden and I were anxious he should die so as
to suppress his testimony in their favour.

At Reval I met by accident Mrs. Stan Harding, w'hom I
had not known before. She was going into Russia filled
with enthusiasm for the Bolsheviks. I did what I could to
disenchant her, but without success. As soon as she ar-
rived they clapped her into gaol, and kept her there for
eight months. She was finally liberated on the insistent
demand of the British Government. The fault, however,
lay not so much with the Soviet Government as with a
certain Mrs. Harrison. Mrs. Harrison was an American
lady of good family who was with us on the Volga. She
was in obvious terror and longing to escape from Russia,
but the Bolsheviks kept her under very close observation.
There was a spy named Axionev, whom they had taken

Russia

147

over from the ancien regime, who watched her every
movement and listened to her every word. He had a long
beard and a melancholy expression, and wrote decadent
French verse with great skill. On the night-train he shared
a conipartment with her; on the boat whenever anybody
spoke with her he would creep behind silently. He had
extraordinary skill in the art of creeping. I felt sorry for
the poor lady, but my sorrow was misplaced. She was an
American spy, employed also by the British. The Russians
discovered that she was a spy, and spared her life on con-
dition that she became a spy for them. But she sabotaged
her work for them, denouncing their friends and letting
their enemies go free. Mrs. Harding knew that she was a
spy, and therefore had to be put away quickly. This was
the reason of her denouncing Mrs. Harding to the Soviet
authorities. Nevertheless, she was a charming woman, and
nursed Allen during his illness with more skill and devo-
tion than was shown by his old friends. When the facts
about her subsequently came to light, Allen steadfastly
refused to hear a word against her.

Lenin, with whom I had an hour’s conversation, rather
disappointed me. I do not t hink that I should have guessed
him to be a great man, but in the course of our conversa-
tion I was chiefly conscious of his intellectual limitations,
and his rather narrow Marxian orthodoxy, as well as a
distinct vein of impish cruelty. I have told of this inter-
view, as well as of my adventures in Russia, in my book
Practice and Theory of Bolshevism.

There was at that time no communication with Russia
either by letter or telegram, owing to the blockade. But
as soon as I reached Reval I began telegraphing to Dora.
To my surprise, I got no reply. At last, when I was in
Stockholm, I telegraphed to friends of hers in Paris, ask-
ing where she was, and received the answer that when last
heard of she was in Stockholm. I supposed she had come
to meet me, but after waiting twenty-four hours in the
expectation of seeing her, I met by chance a Finn who
informed me that she had gone to Russia, via the North

148

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Cape. I realized^ that this was a move in our long-drawn-
out quarrel on the subject of Russia, but I was desper-
ately worried for fear they would put her in prison, as they
would not know why she had come. There was nothing
one could do about it, so I came back to England, where
I endeavoured to recover some kind of sanity, the shock
of Russia having been almost more than I could bear.
After a time, I began to get letters from Dora, brought out
of Russia by friends, and to my great surprise she liked
Russia just as much as I had hated it. I wondered whether
we should ever be able to overcome this difference. How-
ever, among the letters which I found waiting for me whec
I got back to England, was one from China inviting me to
go there for a year to lecture on behalf of the Chinese
Lecture Association, a purely Chinese body which aimed
at importing one eminent foreigner each year, and had in
the previous year imported Dr. Dewey. I decided that 1
would accept if Dora would come with me, but not other
wise. The difficulty was to put the matter before her, ii
view of the blockade. I knew a Quaker at Reval, named
Arthur Watts, who frequently had to go into Russia in
coimection with Quaker relief, so I sent him a telegram
costing several pormds, explaining the circumstances and
asking him to find Dora if he could, and put the mattei
before her. By a stroke of luck this aU worked out. If we
were to go, it was necessary that she should return at
once, and the Bolsheviks at first supposed that I was play-
ing a practical joke. In the end, however, she managed.

We met at Fenchurch Street on a Sunday, and at first
we were almost hostile strangers to each other. She re-
garded my objections to the Bolsheviks as bourgeois and
senile and sentimental I regarded her love of them with
bewildered horror. She had met men in Russia whose atti-
tude seemed to her in every way superior to mine. I had
been finding the same consolation with Colette as I used
to find during the war. In spite of all this, we found our-
selves taking all the necessary steps required for going off
together for a year in China. Some force stronger than

Russia

149

words, or even than our conscious thoughts, kept us to-
gether, so that in action neither of us wavered for a mo-
ment. We had to work literally night and day. From the
time of her arrival to the time of our departure for China
was only five days. It was necessary to buy clothes, to
get passports in order, to say goodbye to friends and rela-
tions, in addition to all the usual bustle of a long journey;
and as I wished to be divorced while in China, it was
necessary to spend the nights in official adultery. The
detectives were so stupid that this had to be done again
and again. At last, however, everything was in order.
Dora, with her usual skill, had so won over her parents
that they came to Victoria to see us off just as if we had
been married. This in spite of the fact that they were com-
pletely and entirely conventional. As the train began to
move out of Victoria, the nightmares and complications
and troubles of recent months dropped off, and a com-
pletely new chapter began.

LETTERS

From J. E. Littlewood

Trinity College

Cambridge

[1919]

Dear Russell:

Einstein’s theory is completely confirmed. The predicted
displacement was 1" • 72 and the observed 1" • 75 rt • 06.

Yours,

J.E.L.

Harvard University
Cambridge
August 29, 1919

Dear Russell:

I wish I knew how to thank you at all adequately for
your letter. When I had finished that book I felt that I

150

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

cared more for wiiat yon and Mr. Justice Holmes thought
about it than for the opinion of any two living men; md
to have you not merely think it worth while, but asree
with it is a very big thing to me. So that if I merely thank
jmu abruptly you will realise that it is not from any want
of warmth.

I have ventured to send you my first book, which has
probably all the vices of the book one writes at twentj'-
three; but you may be interested in the first chapter and
the appendices. And if you’ll allow me to, I’d like to send
you some more technical papers of mine. But I don’t want
you to be bothered by their presence, and allow them to
interfere with your work.

My interest in liberal Catholicism really dates from
1913 when I read Figgis’ Churches in the Modern State
at Oxford; and while I was writing my first book I came to
see that, historicali)^ the church and the State have
changed places since the Reformation and that all the e^ils
of unified ecclesiastical control are slowly becoming the
technique of the modem State — if they have not already
become so: it then stmck me that the evil of this sover-
eignty could be shown fairly easily in the sphere of reli-
gion in its state-connection where men might still hesitate
to admit it in the economic sphere. The second book tried
to bridge the gap; and the book I’m trying now to write is
really an attempt to explain the general problem of free-
dom in institutional terms. If by any lucky chance you
have time to write I’d greatly like to send you its plan and
have your opinion on it.

There is a more prhute thing about which I would like
you to know in case you think there is a chance that you
can help. I know from your Introduction to Mathematical
Logic that you think well of Sheffer w'ho is at present in
Lhe Philosophy Department here. I don’t know if you have
any personal acquaintance with him. He is a jew and he
bas married someone of whom the University does not
approve; moreover he hasn’t the social qualities that Har-
vard so highly prizes. The result is that most of his depart-
ment is engaged on a determined effort to bring his career

Russia

151

here to an end. Hoemle, who is at present its chairman, is
certain that L£ someone can explain that Sheffer is worth
while the talk against him would cease; and he’s finished
a paper on some aspect of mathematical logic that he him-
self feels will give him a big standing when it can get
published. Myself I think that the whole thing is a com-
bination of anti-semitism and that curious university wor-
ship of social prestige which plays so large a part over
here. Do you know anyone at Harvard well enough to say
(if you so think) that Sheffer ought to have a chance? Of
course I write this entirely on my own responsibility but
I’m very certain that if Lowell could know your opinion
of Sheffer it would make a big difference to his future.
And if he left here I thinlc he would find it very difficult to
get another post. Please forgjve me for bothering you with
these details.

I shall wait with immense eagerness for the Nation. I
owe Massingham many debts; but none so great as this.

Believe me

Yours very sincerely,

Harold J. Laski

From this time onward I used to send periodical cables
to President Lowell, explaining that Sheffer was a man oj
the highest ability and that Harvard would be eternally dis-
graced if it dismissed him either because he was a Jew or
because it disliked his wife. Fortunately these cables just
succeeded in their object.

Harvard Univcrsit>'
Cambridge
September 29, 1919

Dear Mr. Russell:

Thank you heartily for your letter. I am sending you
some semi-legal papers and a more general one on admin-
istration. The book I ventured to send you earlier. I am
very grateful for your kindness in wanting them.

And I am still more grateful for your word on Sheffer.

I have given it to Hoemle who will show it to the members

152

The Autobiography oj Bertrand Russell

of the Philosophy Department and, if. necessary, to
Lowell. And I have sent copies to two members of the
Corporation who will fight if there is need. I don’t think
there- is anything further to be done at the moment. It
wotild do no good to write to Perry. These last years,
particularly twelve months in the War Department of the
U.S. have made him very conservative and an eager adher-
ent of “correct form.” He is the head and centre of the
enemy forces and I see no good in trying to move him
direclly. He wants respectable neo-Christians in the De-
partment who win explain the necessity of ecclesiastical
sanctions; or, if they are not religious, at least they must
be materially successful. I don’t think universities are ever
destined to be homes of liberalism; and the American sys-
tem is in the hands of big business and dominated by its
grosser ideals. Did you ever read Veblen’s Higher Learn-
ing in America?

You may be interested to know that I have a graduate
class at Yale this term reading Roads to Freedom. I’ve
never met Yale men before; but. it was absorbingly inter-
esting to see their amazement that Marx and Bakunin and
the rest could be written of without abuse. Which reminds
me that in any new edition of that book I v/ish you would
say a good word for Proudhon! I think his Du Principe
Federatij and his Justice Dans La Revolution are two very
great books.

And may I have a photograph with your name on it to
hang in my study. That would be an act of genuine nobil-
ity on your part.

Yours very sincerely,
Harold J. Laski

Harvard University
Cambridge
November 2 1919

ear Mr. Russell:

Many thanks for the photograph. Even if it is bad, it
^ves a basis to the ima gination and that’s what I wanted.

154 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Hoemle definitely fight for his reappointment. Perry wa-
vers on account of Huntingdon’s emphatic praise of Shef-
fer’s work and says his decision will depend most largely
on what you and Moore of Chicago feel. So if you do
approve of it, the more emphatic your telegram the more
helpful it win be. There is a real fighting chance at the
moment.

Things here are in a terrible mess. Injunctions violating
specific government promises; arrest of the miners’ leaders
because the men refused to go back; recommendation of
stringent le^slation against “reds”; arrest of men in the
West for simple possession of an I.W.W. card; argument
by even moderates like Eliot that the issue is a straight
fight between labor and constitutional government; all
these are in the ordinary course of events. And neither
Pound nor I think the crest of the wave has been reached.
Some papers have actually demanded that the Yale Uni-
versity Press withdraw my books from circulation because
they preach “anarchy.” On the other hand Holmes and
Brandeis wrote (through Holmes) a magnificent dissent
in defence of freedom of speech in an espionage act case.
I’ve sent the two opinions to Massingham and suggested
that he show them to you.

This sounds very ^oomy; but since America exported
Lady Astor to En^and there’s an entire absence of politi-
cal comedy.

Yours very sincerely,
Harold J. Laski

Plus ga change.

Harvard University

Cambridge

January 5, 1919 [1920]

')ear Mr. Russell:

It was splendid to have your telegram about Sheffer’s
>aper. I am afraid we are fighting a lost battle as it looks
s if Hoemle wiU go to Yale, which means the with-
[rawal of our main support. Harvard is determined to be
socially respectable at all costs. I have recently been inter-

Russia

155

viewed by the Board of Overseers to know (a) whether I
believe in a revolution with blood (b) whether I believe
in the Soviet form of government (c) whether I do not
believe that the American form of government is superior
to any other (d) whether I believe in the right of revolu-
tion.

In the last three days they have arrested five thousand
socialists with a view to deportation. I feel glad that Gra-
ham Wallas is going to try and get me home!

Yours very sincerely,
Harold J. Laski

Harvard University
Cambridge
February 18 th, 1920

Dear Mr. Russell:

Above all, warm congratulations on your return to
Cambridge. That sounds like a real return of general san-
ity, I hope you will not confine your lectures to mathe-
matical logic. . . .

I sent you the other day a volume of Augent’s my wife
and I translated last year; I hope you will find time to
glance at it. I am very eager to get away from this coun-
try, as you guessed, but rather balSed as to how to do it.
I see no hope in Oxford and I know no one at all in Cam-
bridge. Wallas is trying to do something for me in Lon-
don, but I don’t know with what success.. I am heartily
sick of America and I would like to have an atmosphere
again where an ox does not tread upon the tongue.

Yours very sincerely,
Harold Laski

16, Wanvick Gardens
[London] W.14
2.1.22

Dear Russell:

Tliis enclosure formally. Informally let me quote from
Rivers; We asked him to stand as the labour candidate for

156 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

London. This is part of Ms reply. “I tMnlc that a distinct
factor in my decision has been The Analysis of Mind
wMch I have now read really carefully. It is a great book,
and makes me marvel at his intellect. It has raised all
kinds of problems with. wMch I should like to deal, and I
certainly should not be able to do so if I entered on a
political life. ktXT

What about Rivers, load. Delisle Bums, Clifford Allen
- as the nucleus of our new utilitarians?

Yours,

H. J. Laskt

[Postcard]

Cassino

Provincia Caserta

Italy

9.2.19

Dear Russell:

I don’t know your precise address but hope these lines
wHl reach you somehow, I am prisoner in Italy since No-
vember and hope I may communicate with you after a
three years interruption. I have done lots of logikal
work wMch I am dying. to let you know before publishing
it.

Ever yours

Ludwig Wittgenstein

{postcard]

Cassino

10.3.19

You caim’t immagine how glad I was to get your cards! I
am affraid though there is no hope that we may meet
before long. Unless you came to see me here, but this
pould be too much joy for me. I cann’t write on Logic as
I’m not allowed to write more than 2 Cards (15 lines
each) a week. I’ve written a book wMch will be published

Russia

157

as soon as I get home. I think I have solved our problems
finaly. Write to me often. It will shorten my prison. God
bless you.

Ever yours,
Wittgenstein

13.3.19

Dear Russell:

Thanks so much for your postcards dated 2nd and 3rd
of March. I’ve had a very bad time, not knowing wether
you were dead or alive! I cann’t write on Logic as I’m not
allowed to write more than two p.cs. a week (15 lines
each) . This letter is an ecception, it’s posted by an Aus-
trian medical student who goes home tomorrow. Fve
written a book called Logisch-Pliilosophische Abbandlimg
containing all my work of the last 6 years. I believe I’ve
solved our problems finally. This may sound arrogant but
I cann’t help believing it. I finished the book in August
1918 and two months after was made Prigionicre. I’ve got
the manuscript here with me. I wish I could copy it out
for you; but it’s pretty long and I would have no safe way
of sending it to you. In fact you would not understand it
without a previous explanation as it’s written in quite short
remarks. (This of cours means that nobody will under-
stand it; although I believe it’s aU as clear as ciy’stall. But
it upsets all our theory of truth, of classes, of numbers
and aU the rest.) I will publish it as soon as I get home.
Now I’m aflraid this won’t be “before long.’’ And conse-
quently it will be a long time yet till we can meet. I can
hardly immagine seeing you again! It will be too much! I
suppose it would be impossible for you to come and see
me here? Or perhaps you think it’s collossal check of me
even to think of such a thing. But if you were on the other
end of the world and I could come to you I would do it.

Please write to me how you arc, remember me to Dr.
Whitehead. Is old Johnson still alive? Think of me often!

Ever yours,

LUDWTG ^^'ITTGE^•STEI^•

158 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

[Cassino

12 . 6 . 19 ]

Lieber Russell!

Vor einigen Tagen schickte ich Dir mein Manuskript
durch Keynes’s Vermittelung. Ich schrieb damals nur ein
paar Zeilen fuer Dich hinein. Seither ist nun Dein Buch
ganz in meine Haende gelangt und nun haette ich ein
grosses Beduerfnis Dir einiges zu schreiben. — Ich haette
nicht geglaubt, doss das, was ich vor 6 Jahren in Nor-
wegen dem Moore diktierte an Dir so spurlos vorueber-
gehen wuerde. Kurz ich fuerchte jetzt, es moechte sehr
schwer filer mich sein mich mil Dir zu verstaendigen. Vnd
der geringe Rest von Moffnung mein Manuskript koenne
Dir etwas sagen, ist ganz verscJrwunden. Einen Komentar
zu meinem Buch zu schreiben, bin ich wie Du Dir denken
kannst, nicht im Stande. Nur muendlich koennte ich Dir
einen geben. Ist Dir irgend an dem Verstaendnis der Sache
etwas gelegen und kannst Du ein Zusammentreffen mil
mir bewerkstelligen, so, bitte, tue es. — Ist dies nicht moeg-
lich, so sei so gut und schicke das Manuskript so bald Du
es gelesen hast auf sicherem Wege nach Wien zurueck. Es
. ist das einzige korrigierte Exemplar, welches ich besitze
und die Arbeit meines Lebens! Mehr als je brenne ich
jetzt darauf es gedruckt zu sehen. Es ist bitter, das vollen-
dete Werk in der Gefangenschaft herumschleppen zu mues-
sen und zu sehen, wir der TJnsinn draussen sein Spiel
treibt! Und ebenso bitter ist es zu denken dass niemand es
verstehen wird, auch wenn es gedruckt sein wird! — Rost
Du mir jemals seit Deinen zxvei ersten Karten geschrieben?
Ich habe nichts erhalten.

Sei herzlichst gegruesst und glaube nicht, dass alles
rhimmheit ist was Du nicht verstehen wirst.

Dein treuer,

Ludwig Wittgenstein

This and the following translations of Wittgenstein,
letters in German are by B. F. McGuinness.

Russia

159

[Cassino

12.6.19]

Dear Russell:

Some days ago I sent you my manuscript, through
Keynes’s good oiBces. I enclosed only a couple of lines
for you at the time. Since then your book has arrived
here safely and I now feel a great need to write you a
number of things. — I should never have believed that
what I dictated to Moore in Norway six years ago
would pass over you so completely without trace. In
short, I am afraid it might be very difficult for me to
reach an understanding with you. And my small re-
maining hope that my manuscript would convey some-
thing to you has now quite vanished. Writing a com-
mentary on my book is out of the question for me, as
you can imagine. I could only give you an oral one.
If you attach any importance whatsoever to under-
st^ding the thing, and if you can arrange a meeting
with me, please do so. — If that is impossible, then be
so good as to send the manuscript back to Vienna by a
safe route as soon as you have read it. It is the only
corrected copy I possess and it is my life’s work! I
long to see it in print, now more than ever. It is bitter
to have to lug the completed work around with me in
captivity and to see nonsense rampant in the world
outside. And it is just as bitter to think that no one will
understand it even if it is printed! — Have you writ-
ten to me at all since your first two cards? 1 have re-
ceived nothing. Kindest regards, and don’t suppose
that everything that you won't be able to understand is
a piece of stupidity!

Yours ever,

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Cassino

19.8.1919

Dear Russell:

Thanks so much for your letter dated 13 August. As to
your queries, I cann’t answer them now. For firstly I don't
know allways what the numbers refer to, having no copy

160

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

of the M.S. here. Secondly some of your questions want a
very lengthy answer and you know how difBcuIt it is for
me to write on logic. That’s also the reason why my book
is so short, and consequently so obscure. But that I cam’t
help. — ^ Now I’m affraid you haven’t really got hold of
my main contention, to which the whole business of logi-
cal props is only a corolary. The main point is the theory
of what can be expressed (gesagt) by props — i.e. by
linguage — (and, which comes to the same, what can be
thought) and what can not be expressed by props, but
only shown {gezeigt)-, which, I believe, is the cardinal
problem of philosophy. — -

I also sent my M.S. to Frege. He wrote to me a week
agO- and I gather that he doesn’t understand a word of it
all. So my only hope is to see you soon and explain all to
you, for it , is very hard not to be understood by a
sin^e sole!

Now the day after tomorrow we shall probably leave
the campo concentramento and go home. Thank God! —
But how can we meet as soon as possible. I should like to
come to England, but you can imagine that it’s rather
awkward for a German to travel to England now. (By far
more so, than for an Englishman to travel to Germany.)
But in fact I didn’t think of asking you to come to Vienna
now, but it would seem to me the best thing to meet in
Holland or Svitserland. Of cors, if you cann’t come abroad
I wid do my best to get to England. Please write to me as
soon as possible about this point, letting me know when
you are likely to get the permission of coming abroad.
Please write to Vienna IV AUeegasse 16. As to my M.S.,
please send it to the same address; but only if there is an
absolutely safe way of sending it. Otherwise please keep
it. I should be veiy glad though, to get it soon, as it’s the
only corrected coppy I’ve got. — My mother wrote to me,
she was very sorry not to have got your letter, but glad
that you tried to write to her at all.

Now write soon. Best wishes.

Ever yours,

Ludwig Wittgenstein'

Ritssia

161

P.S. After having finished my letter I feel tempted after
all to answer some of your simpler points. . . .*

20.9.20

Lieber Russell!

Dank^ Dir juer Deinen lieben Brief! Ich babe jetzt eine
Anstellung bekommen; und zwar als V olksschullehrer in
einem der kleinsten Doerfer; es heisst Trattenbach und
liegt 4 Stunden suedlich von Wien im Gebirge. Es
duerjte wohl das erste mal sein, dass der V olksschullehrer
von Trattenbach mit einem Universitaetsprojessor in Pe-
king korrespondiert. Wie gehi es Dir und was traegsl Du
vor? Philosophic? Dann wollte ich, ich koennte zuhoeren
und dann mit Dir streiten. Ich war bis vor kurzern schreck-
lich bedrueckt und lebensmuede, jetzt aber bin ich ctwas
hoffnungsvoller und jetzt hoffe ich auch, dass wir tins
wiedersehen werden.

Gott mit Dir! Und sei herzlichst gegruesst

von Deinem treuen
Ludwig Wittgenstein

20.9.20

Dear Russell:

Thank you for your kind letter. I have now obtained
a position: I am to be an elementary-school teacher in
a tiny village called Trattenbach. It’s in the mountains,
about four hours’ journey south of Vienna. It must be
the first time that the schoolmaster at Trattenbach has
ever corresponded with a professor in Peking. How
are you? And what are you lecturing on? Philosophy?

K so, I wish I could be there and could argue with you
afterwards. A short while ago I was terribly depressed
and tired of living, but now I am slightly more hope-
ful, and one of the things I hope is that we'll meet
again.

God be with you! Kindest regards.

Yours ever,

Ludwig \\’ittgf.nstein

* The postscript to this letter has been omitted bcceiisc of its techni-
cal nature. It can be found in Wiltpcnsicin’s Notel<t>o!is /9/<-/976,
pp. 129-130,

162

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

[Trattenbach]

23.10.21

Lieber Russell!

Verzeih, dass ich Dir erst jetzt auf Deinen Brief aits
China antworte. Ich habe ihn sehr verspaetet erhalten. Er
iraf mich nicht in Trattenbach und -wurde mir an ver-
schiedene Orte nachgeschickt, ohne mich zu erreichen . —
Es tut mir sehr leid, dass Du krank worst; und gar schwer!
Wie geht es derm jetzt?! Bei mir hat sich nichts veraendert.
Ich bin noch immer in Trattenbach und bin nach wie vor
von Gehaessigkeit und Gemeinheit umgeben. Es ist wahr,
dass die Menschen im Durchschnitt nirgends sehr viel wert
sind; aber hier sind sie viel mehr als anderswo nichts-
nutzig und unverantwortlich. Ich werde vielleicht noch
dieses Jahr in Trattenbach bleiben, aber laenger wohl
nicht, da ich mich hier ouch mit den uebrigen Lehrern
nicht gut vertrage. (Vielleicht wird das wo anders aiicli
nicht besser sein.) Ja, das waere schoen, wenn Du mich
einmal besuchen wolltest! Ich bin froh zu hoeren, dass
mein Manuskript in Sicherheit ist. Wenn es gedruckt wird,
wird’s mir auch recht sein . — :

Schreib mir bald ein paar Zeilen, wie es Dir geht, etc.
etc.

Sei herzlich gegruesst

von Deinem treuen,
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Empfiehl mich der Miss Black.

PTrattenbach]

■ 23 . 10.21

Dear Russell:

Forgive me for only now answering your letter from
China. I got it after a very long delay. I wasn’t in
Trattenbach when it arrived and it was forwarded to
several places before it reached ine. — I am very sorry
that you have been ill — and seriously ill! How are
you now, then? As regards me, nothing has changed. I
am still at Trattenbach, surrounded, as ever, by

Hitssia

163

odiousness and baseness. I know that human beings on
the average are not v/orth much anywhere, but here
they are much more good-for-nothing and irrespon-
sible than elsewhere. I will perhaps stay on in Trattcn-
bach for the present year but probably not any longer,
because I don’t get on well here even with the other
teachers (perhaps that won’t be any better in another
place). Yes, it would be nice indeed, if you would visit
me sometime. I am glad to hear that my manuscript is
in safety. And if it’s printed, that will suit me too. —
Write me a few lines soon, to say how you are, etc.
etc.

Kindest regards.

Yours ever,

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Remember me to Miss Black.

[Trattenbach]

28.11.21

Lieber Russell!

Dank Dir vielmals fuer Deinen lieben Brief. Ehrlich
gestanden: es freut mich, dass mein Zeug gedruckt wird.
Wenn auch der Ostwald ein Erzscharlatan ist! Wenn er es
nur nicht verstuemmelt! Liest Du die Korrekturcn? Dann
bitte sei so lieb imd gib acht, dass er es genau so druckt,
wie es bei mir steht. Ich traue dcm Ostwald zu, dass cr die
Arbeit nach seinem Geschmack, etwa nach seiner bloed-
sinnigen Orthographic, veraendert. Am licbstcn ist cs mir,
dass die Sache in England erscheint. Moege sie der viclcn
Muelie die Du und andere mit ihr hatten wuerdig scin ! —
Du hast recht: nicht die Trattenbachcr allein sind
schlechter, als alle uebrigen Menschcn; wohl aber ist Trat-
tenbach ein besonders minderwertiger Ort in Ocstcrrcich
und die Oesterreicher sind — seit dcm Kricg — hodenlos
tief gesunken, dass es zu traurig ist, davon zu redcn! So ist
es. — Wenn Du diese Zeilen kriegst, ist vicllcicht schort
Dein Kind auf dicscr merlmnierdigcn Welt. Also: ich
gratuliere Dir mtd Deiner Frau hcrzUchsl. Vcrzcih, dass
ich so lange nicht gcschrieben habc; auch ich bin ctwas

164

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

kraenklich imd riesig beschaeftigt. Bitte schreibe vneder
einmal wenn Du Zeit hast. Von Ostwald habe ich keinen
Brief erhalten. Wenn alles gut geht tverde ich Dich mil
tausend Freuden besucheni

HerzJichste Gniesse,

Dein,

Ludwig Wittgeksteik

[Trattenbachl

28.11.21

Dear Russell:

Alany thacks for your kind letter! I must admit I am
pleased that my stuff is going to be printed. Even
though Ostwald* is an utter charlatan. As long as he
doesn’t tamper viith it! Are you going to read the
proofs? If so, please take care that he prints it exactly
as I have it. He is quite capable of altering the work to
suit his own tastes — putting it into his idiotic spelling,
for example. What pleases me most is that the whole
thing is going to appear in England. I hope it may be
worth aU the trouble that you and others have taken
with it

You are right: the Trattenbachers are not uniquely
worse than the rest of the human race. But Tratten-
bach is a particularly insignificant place in Austria and
the Austrians have sunk so miserably Jow since the
war that it’s too dismal to talk about That’s what it is.

By the time you get this letter your child will per-
haps already have come into this remarkable world.

So: warmest congratulations to j’-ou and your wife!
Forgive me for not having written to you for so long.

I too haven’t been very well and I’ve been tremen-
dously busy. Please write again when you have time.

I have not had a letter from Ostwald. If all goes well,

I will come and visit you with the greatest of pleasure.

Kindest regards.

Yours,

Ludwug Wittgenstein

♦Wilhslm Ostwald, editor of Armcden der Rcturphiiosaphie, where
j^is Tractams with, my Introdaction first appeared in 1921.

Russia

165

The International Library of Psychology
Nov. 5, 1921

Dear Russell:

Kegan Paul ask me to give them some formal note for
their files with regard to the Wittgenstein rights.

I enclose, with envelope for your convenience, the sort
of thing I should like. As they can’t drop less than £.50
on doing it I think it very satisfactory to have got it
accepted — though of course if they did a second edition
soon and the price of printing went suddenly down they
mi^t get their costs back. I am stUl a little uneasy about
the title and don’t want to feel that we decided in a hurry
on Philosophical Logic. If on second thoughts you are
satisfied with it, we can go ahead with that. But you miglit
be able to excogitate alternatives that I could submit.

Moore’s Spinoza title which he thought obvious and
ideal is no use if you feel Wittgenstein wouldn’t like it. I
suppose his sub specie aeterni in the last sentences of the
book made Moore think the contrary, and several Latin
quotes. But as a selling title Philosophical Logic is better,
if it conveys the right impression.

Looking rapidly over the off print in the train last night,
I was amazed that Nicod and Miss Wrinch had both
seemed to make so very little of it. The main lines seem so
reasonable and intelligible — apart from the Types puz-
zles. I know you are frightfully busy just at present, but I
should very much like to know why all this account of
signs and symbols cannot best be understood in relation
to a thoroughgoing causal theory. I mean the sort of thing
in the enclosed: — on “Sign Situations” (= Chapter II
of tlie early Synopsis attached). The w'hole book whicli
the publishers want to call The Meaning of Meaning is
now passing through the press; and before it is too late \vc
should like to have discussed it with someone who has
seriously considered Watson. Folk here still don’t think
there is a problem of Meaning at all, and tliough your

166

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Analysis of Mind has distxirbed them, everything still re-
mains rather astrological.

With best wishes for, and love to the family,

^ Yours sincerely,

C. K. Ogden

P.S. On second thoughts, I think that as you would prefer
Wittgenstein’s German to appear as well as the English, it
might help if you added the P.S. I have stuck in, and I
will press them further if I can.*

To Ottoline MorreU Hotel Continental j

Stockholm
25th June 1920

Dearest O:

I have got thus far on my return, but boats are very full
and it may be a week before I reach England. I left Allen
in a nursing home in Reval, no longer in danger, tho’
twice he had been given up by the Doctors. Partly owing
to his iUness, but more because I loathed the Bolsheviks,
the time in Russia was infinitely painful to me, in spite of
being one of the most interesting things I have ever done.
Bolshevism is a close tyrannical bureaucracy, with a spy
system niore elaborate and terrible than the Tsar’s, and an
aristocracy as insolent and unfeeling, composed of Ameri-
canised Jews. No vestige of liberty remains, in thou^t or
speech or action. I was stifled and oppressed by the weight
of the machine as by a cope of lead. Yet I think it the
right government for Russia at this moment. If you ask
yourself how Dostoevsky’s characters should be governed,
you will imderstand. Yet it is terrible. They are a nation
of artists, down to the simplest peasant; the aim of the
Bolsheviks is to make them industrial and as Yankee as
possible. Imagine yomrself governed in every detail by a
mixture of Sidney Webb and Rufus Isaacs, and you will

This note now appears at the beginning of the Tractatus.

Russia

167

have a picture of modem Russia. I went hoping to find
the promised land.

All love — I hope I shall see you soon.

Your B.

Mrs. E. G. Kerschner
Bei Von Futtkamer
Rudesheimerstr. 3
Wilmersdorf, Berlin
July 8th [1922]

My dear Mr. Russell;

My niece forwarded your kind letter to her of June
17th. I should have replied earher, but I was waiting for
her arrival, as I wanted to talk the matter over with her.

Thank you very much for your willingness to assist me.
I daresay, you will meet with very great difficulties. I
understand that the British Foreign Office refused \ises to
such people as Max Eastman of the Liberator, and Lin-
coln Steffens, the journalist. It is not likely that the Gov-
ernment will be more gracious to me.

I was rather amused at your phrase “that she vwll not
engage in the more violent forms of Anarchism?” I know,
of course, that it has been my reputation that I indulged
in such forms, but it has never been borne out by the facts.
However, I should not want to gain my right of asylum in
England or any country by pledging to abstain from the
expression of my ideas, or the right to protest against
injustice. The Austrian Government offered me asylum if
I would sign such a pledge. Naturally, I refused. Life as
we live it today is not worth much. I would not feel it was
worth anything if I had to forswear what I believe and
stand for.

Under these conditions, if it is not too great a burden, I
would appreciate any efforts made in my behalf which
would give me the right to come to England. For the
present I will probably get an extension of my vise in
Germany because I have had an offer to write a book on
Russia from Harper Bros, of New York.

,168

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

No, the Bolsheviki did not compel me to leave Russia.
Much to my surprise they gave me passports. They have
however made it di£Bcult for me to obtain rises from other
countries. Naturally they can not endure the criticism con-
tained in the ten articles I wrote for the Nov York World,
in April last, after leaving Russia.

Very sincerely yours,
Emma Goldma.n

Emma Goldman did at last acquire permission to come
to England. A dinner was given in her honour at which I
was present. When she rose to speak, she was welcomed
enthusiastically; but when she sat down, there was dead
silence. This was because almost the whole of her speech
was against the Bolsheviks.

We travelled to China from Marseilles in a French boat
called Portos. Just before we left London, we learned that,
owing to a case of plague on board, the sailing would be
delayed for three weeks. We did not feel, however, that
we could go throu^ aU the business of saying goodbye a
second time, so we went to Paris and spent the three
weeks there. During this time I finished my book on Rus-
sia, and decided, after much hesitation, that I would pub-
lish it. To say anything against Bolshevism was, of course,
to play into the hands of reaction, and most of my friends
took the view that one ought not to say what one thought
about Russia unless what one thought was favourable. I
had, however, been impervious to similar arguments from
patriots during the War, and it seemed to me that in the
long run no good purpose would be served by holding
one’s tongue. The matter was, of course, much compli-
cated for me by the question of my personal relations with
Dora. One hot summer night, after she had gone to sleep,
I got up and sat on the balcony of our room and contem-
plated the stars. I tried to see the question without the
heat of party passion and imagined myself holding a con-
versation with Cassiopeia, It seemed to me that I should be
more in harmony with the stars if I published what I
thought about Bolshevism than if I did not. So I went on
with the work and finished the book on tlie night before
we started for Marseilles.

The bulk of our time in Paris, however, w'as spent in a
more frivolous manner, buying frocks suitable for the Red
Sea, and the rest of the trousseau required for unofficial
marriage. After a few days in Paris, all the appearance of
estrangement which had existed between us ceased, and
we became gay and lighthearted. Tlierc were, however,
moments on the boat when things were difficult. I was

171

172 The Autobiagraphy of Bertrand Russell

sensitive because of the contempt that Dora had poured
' on my head for not liking Russia. I suggested to her that
we had made a mistake in coming away together, and that
the best way out would be to jump into the sea. This
mood, however, which was largely induced by the heat,
soon passed.

The voyage lasted five or six weeks, so that one got to
know one’s fellow-passengers pretty well. The French
people mostly belonged to the official classes. They were
much superior to the English, who were rubber planters
and business men. There were rows between the English
and the French, in which we had to act as mediators. On
one occasion the English asked me to give an address
about Soviet Russia. In view of the sort of people that
they were, I said only favourable things about the Soviet
Government, so there was nearly a riot, and when we
reached Shanghai our English feUow-passengers sent a
telegram to the Consulate General in Peking, urging that
we should not be allowed to land. We consoled ourselves
with the thought of what had befallen the ring-leader
among our enemies at Saigon. There was at Saigon an
elephant whose keeper sold bananas which the visitors
gave to the -elephant. We each gave him a banana, and
he made us a very elegant bow, but our enemy refused,
whereupon the elephant squirted dirty water all over his
immaculate clothes, which also the keeper had taught him
to^ do. Perhaps our amusement at this incident did not
increase his love of us.

When we arrived at Shanghai there was at first no-one
to meet us. I had had from the first a dark suspicion that
the invitation mi^t be a practical joke, and in order, to
test its genuineness I had got the Chinese to pay my pas-
sage money before I started.'! thought that few people
would spend £. 125 on a joke, but when nobody appeared
at Shanghai our fears revived, and we began to think we
might have to creep home with our tails between our legs.
" It turned out, however, that our friends had only made a
htle mistake as to the time of the boat’s arrival. They

China

173

soon appeared on board and took us to a Qu'ncse liotel,
where we passed three of the most bewildering days that
I have ever experienced. There was at first some difficulty
in explaining about Dora. They got the impression that she
was my wife, and when we said that this was not the case,
they were afraid that I should be annoyed about their
previous misconception. I told them that I \wshcd her
treated as my wife, and they published a statement to that
effect in the Chinese papers. From the first moment to the
last of our stay in China, every Chinese vvnth whom we
came in contact treated her with the most complete and
perfect courtesy, and with exactly the same deference as
would have been paid to her if she had been in fact my
wife. They did this in spite of the fact that we insisted
upon her always being called “Miss Black.”

Our time in Shanghai was spent in seeing endless peo-
ple, Europeans, Americans, Japanese, and Koreans, as
well as Chinese. In general the various people who came
to see us were not on speaking terms with each other; for
instance, there could be no social relations between the
Japanese and the Korean Christians who had been exiled
for bomb-throwing. (In Korea at that time a Christian
was practically synonymous with a bomb-thrower.) So we
had to put our guests at separate tables in the public room,
and move round from table to table througliout the day.
We had also to attend an enormous banquet, at which
various Chinese made after-dinner speeches in the best
English style, with exactly the type of joke which is de-
manded of such an occasion. It was our first experience of
the Chinese, and we were somewhat surprised by their
wit and fluency. I had not realized until then that a civil-
ized Chinese is the most civilized person in the world.
Sun Yat-sen invited me to dinner, but to my lasting regret
the evening he suggested was after my departure, and I
had to refuse. Shortly after this he went to Canton to
inaugurate the nationalist movement which afterwards
conquered the whole country, and as I was unable to go
to Canton, I never met him.

174

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Our Chinese friends took us for two days to Hangchow
to see the Western Lake. The first day we went round it
by boat, and the second day in chairs. It v/as mar^'ellously
beautiful, with the beauty of ancient civilization, surpass-
ing even that of Italy. Frorn there we went to Nanking,
and from Nanking by boat to Hankow. The days on the
Yangtse were as delightful as the days on the Volga had
been horrible. From Hankow we went to Changsha, where
an educational conference was in progress. They wished us
to stay there for a week, and give addresses every day,
but we were both exhausted and anxious for a chance to
rest, which made us eager to reach Peking. So we refused
to stay more thrm twenty-four hours, in spite of the fact
that the Governor of Hunan in person held out every
imaginable inducement, including a special train all the
way to Wuchang.

However, in order to. do my best to conciliate the
people of Changsha, I gave four lectures, two after-dinner
speeches, and an after-lunch speech, during the twenty-
four hours. Changsha was a place without modem hotels,
and the missionaries very kindly offered to put us up, but
they made it clear that Dora was to stay with one set of
missionaries, and I with another. We therefore thought it
best to decline their invitation, and stayed at a Chinese
hotel. The experience was not altogether pleasant. Armies
of bugs walked across the bed all through the ni^t.

The Tuchrm* gave a magnificent banquet, at which we
first met the Deweys, who behaved with great kindness,
and later, when I became ill, John Dewey treated us both
with singular helpfulness. I was told that when he came to
see me in the hospital, he was much touched by my saying,
“We must make a plan for peace” at a time when every-
thing else that I said was delirium. There were about a
hundred guests at the Tuchun’s banquet We assembled
in one vast haU and then moved into another for the feast,
which was sumptuous beyond belief. In the middle of it

* The mUitary Governor of the Province.

China

175

the Tuchun apologized for the extreme simplicity of the
fare, saying that he thought we should like to see how they
lived in everyday life rather than to be treated with any
pomp. To my intense chagrin, I was unable to think of a
retort in kind, but I hope the interpreter made up for my
lack of wit. We left Changsha in the middle of a lunar
eclipse, and saw bonfires being lit and heard gongs beaten
to Mghten off the Heavenly Dog, according to the tradi-
tional ritual of China on such occasions. From Changsha,
we travelled straight through to Peking, where we enjoyed
our first wash for ten days.

Our first months in Peking were a time of absolute and
complete happiness. All the difficulties and disagreements
that we had had were completely forgotten. Our Qiincsc
friends were delightful. The work was interesting, and
Peking itself inconceivably beautiful.

We had a house boy, a male cook and a rickshaw boy.
The house boy spoke some English and it was throu^
him that we made ourselves intelligible to the others. This
process succeeded better than it would have done in En-
gland. We engaged the cook sometime before we came to
live in our house and told him that the first meal we should
want would be dinner some days hence. Sure enough,
when the time came, dinner was ready. The house boy
knew everything. One day we were in need of change and
we had hidden what we believed to be a dollar in an old
table. We described its whereabouts to the house boy and
asked him to fetch it. He replied imperturbably, “No,
Madam. He bad.” We also had the occasional scn-’iccs of
a sewing woman. We engaged her in the winter and dis-
pensed with her services in the summer. We were
amused to observe that while, in winter, she had been
very fat, as the weather grew warm, she became gradually
very thin, having replaced the thick garments of winter
gradually by the elegant garments of summer. Wc had to
furnish our house which we did from the very excellent
second-hand furniture shops which abounded in Peking.
Our Chinese friends could not understand our preferring

176

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

old Chinese things to modem furniture from Birmingham.
We had an official interpreter assigned to look after us.
His En^ish was very good and he was especially proud of
his ability to make puns in English. His name was Mr.
Chao and, when I showed him an article that I had written
called “Causes of the Present Chaos,” he remarked, “Well,
I suppose, the causes of the present Chaos are the previous
Chaos.” I became a close friend of his in the course of our
journeys. He was engaged to a Chinese girl and I was able
to remove some difficulties that had impeded his marriage.
I stiU hear from him occasionally and once or twice he
and his wife have come to see me in England.

I was very busy lecturing, and I also had a seminar of
the more advanced students. All of them were Bolsheviks
except one, w'ho was the nephew of the Emperor. They
used to slip o2 to Moscow one by one. They were charm-
ing youths, ingenuous and intelligent at the same time,
eager to know the world and to escape from the trammels
of Chinese tradition. Most of them had been betrothed
in infancy to old-fashioned girls, and were troubled by the
ethical question whether they would be justified in break-
ing the betrothal to marry some girl of modem education.
The gulf between the old China and the new was vast, and
f amil y bonds were extraordmarily irksome for the mod-
em-minded young man. Dora used to go to the Girls’
Normal School, where those who were to be teachers were
being trained. They would put to her every kind of ques-
tion about marriage, free love, contraception, etc., and she
answered aU their questions with complete frankness.
Nothing of the sort would have been possible in any sim-
ilar European institution. In spite of their freedom of
thought, traditional habits of behaviour had a great hold
upon them. We occasionally gave parties to the young
men of my seminar and the girls at the Normal School.
The girls at first would take refuge in a room to which
they supposed no men would penetrate, and they had to
be fetched out and encouraged to associate with males. It

China

177

must be said that when once the ice was broken, no further
encouragement was needed.

The National University of Peking for which I lectured
was a very remarkable institution. The Chancellor and the
Vice-Chancellor were men passionately devoted to the
modernizing of China. The Vice-Chancellor was one of
the most wholehearted idealists that I have ever known.
The funds which should have gone to pay salaries were
always being appropriated by Tuchuns, so that the teach-
ing was mainly a labour of love. The students deserved
what their professors had to give them. They were ardently
desirous of knowledge, and there was no limit to the sacri-
fices that they were prepared to make for their country.
The atmosphere was electric with the hope of a great
awakening. After centuries of slumber, China was becom-
ing aware of the modem world, and at that time the sor-
didnesses and compromises that go with governmental
responsibility had not yet descended upon the reformers.
The English sneered at the reformers, and said that China
would always be China. They assured me that it was silly
to listen to the frothy talk of half-baked young men; yet
within a few years those half-baked young men had con-
quered China and deprived the English of many of their
most cherished privileges.

Since the advent of the Communists to power in Cliina,
the policy of the British towards that countrj' has been
somewhat more enlightened than that of the United States,
but until that time the exact opposite was the case. In
1926, on three several occasions, British troops fired on
unarmed crowds of Chinese students, killing and wound-
ing many. I wrote a fierce denunciation of these outrages,
which was published first in England and then throughout
China. An American missionary in Qrina, with whom I
corresponded, came to England shortly after this time,
and told me that indignation in China had been such as
to endanger the lives of all Englishmen living in that coun-
try. He even said — though I found this scarcely credible
— that the English in Qiina owed their prcscrs’ation to

178 The A iitobiography of Bertrand Russell

me, since I had caused infuriated Chinese to conclude
that not all Englishmen are vile. However that may be, I
incurred the hostility, not only of the English in China,
but of the British Government

White men in China were ignorant of many things that
were common knowledge among the Chinese. On one
occasion my bank (which v/as American) gave me notes
issued by a French bank, and I foimd that Chinese trades-
men refused to accept them. My bank expressed astonish-
ment, and gave me other notes instead. Three months
later, the French bank went bankrupt, to the surprise of
all other white banks in China.

The Englishman in the East, as far as I was able to
judge of him, is a man completely out of touch with his
environment. He plays polo and goes to his club. He
derives his ideas of native culture from the works of
eighteenth-century missionaries, and he regards intelli-
gence in the East with the same contempt which he feels
for intelligence in his own country. Unfortunately for our
political sagacity, he overlooks the fact that in the East
intelligence is respected, so that enlightened Radicals have
an influence upon affairs which is denied to their English
counterparts. MacDonald went to Windsor in knee-
breeches, but the Chinese reformers showed no such re-
spect to their Emperor, althou^ our monarchy is a mush-
room growth of yesterday compared to that of China.

My views as to what should be done in China I put
into my book The Problem of China and so shall not
repeat them here.

In spite of the fact that China was in a ferment, it
appeared to us, as compared with Europe, to be a country
filled with philosophic calm. Once a week the mail would
arrive from England, and the letters and newspapers that
came from there seemed to breathe upon us a hot blast o!
insanity like the fiery heat that comes from a furnace door
suddenly opened. As we had to work on Sundays, we
made a practice of taking a holiday on Mondays, and we
usually spent the whole day in the Temple of Heaven, the

China

179

most beautiful building that it has ever been my good
fortune to see. We would sit in the winter sunshine saying
little, gradually absorbing peace, and would come away
prepared to face the madness and passion of our own
distracted continent with poise and calm. At other times,
we used to walk on the walls of Peking. I remember with
particular vividness a walk one evening starting at sunset
and continuing through the rise of the full moon.

The Chinese have (or had) a sense of humour which I
found very congenial. Perhaps communism has killed it,
but when I was there they constantly reminded me of the
people in their ancient books. One hot day two fat middle-
aged business men invited me to motor into the country to
see a certain very famous half-ruined pagoda. When we
reached it, I climbed the spiral staircase, expecting them
to foUow, but on arriving at the top I saw them still on the
ground. I asked why they had not come up, and witli
portentous gravity they replied:

“We thought of coming up, and debated whether we
should do so. Many weighty arguments were advanced on
both sides, but at last there was one which decided us.
The pagoda might crumble at any moment, and we felt
that, if it did, it would be well there should be those who
could bear witness as to how the philosopher died.”

What they meant was that it was hot and they were fat.

Many Chinese have that refinement of humour which
consists in enjoying a joke more when the other person
cannot see it. As I was leaving Peking a Chinese friend
gave me a long classical passage microscopically engraved
by hand on a very small surface; he also gave me the
same passage written out in exquisite calligraphy, ^^^^cn
I asked what it said, he replied: “Ask Professor Giles
when you get home.” I took his advice, and found that it
was “The Consultation of the Wizard,” in which the wiz-
ard merely advises his clients to do whatever they like.
He was poking fun at me because I always refused to
give advice to the Chinese as to their immediate political
difficulties.

180 the A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

The climate of Peldng in winter is very cold. The wind
blows almost always from the north, bringing an icj' breath
, from the Mongolian mountains. I got bronchitis, but paid
■ no attention to it. It seemed to get better, and one day, at
the invitation of some Chinese friends, we went to a place
about two hours by motorcar from Peking, where there
were hot springs. The hotel provided a very good tea, and
someone suggested that it was unwise to eat too much tea
as it would spoil one’s dinner. I objected to such prudence
on the ground that the Day of Judgment might intervene.
I was light, as it was three months before I ate another
square meal. After tea, I suddenly began to shiver, and
after I had been shivering for an hour or so, we decided
that we had better get back to Peking at once. On the way
home, our car had a puncture, and by the time the punc-
ture was mended, the engine was cold. By this time, I was
nearly delirious, but the Chinese servants and Dora
pushed the car to the top of a hill, and on the descent the
engine gradually began to work. Owing to the delay,
the gates of Peking were shut when we reached them, and
it took an hour of telephoning to get them open. By the
time we finally got home, I was very ill indeed. Before I
had time to realize what was happening, I was delirious.
I was moved into a German hospital, where Dora nursed
me by day, and the only English professional nurse in
Peking nursed me by night. For a fortnight the doctors
thought every evening that I should be dead before morn-
ing. I remember nothing of this time except a few dreams.
When I came out of delirium, I did not know where I was,
and did not recognize the nurse. Dora told me that I had
been very ill and nearly died, to which I replied: “How
interesting,” but I was so weak that I forgot it in five
minutes, and she had to tell me again. I could not even
remember my own name. But although for about a month
after my delirium had ceased they kept telling me I might
die at any moment, I never believed a word of it. The
nurse whom they had foimd was rather distingmshed m
- her profession, and had been the Sister in charge of a

China

181

hospital in Serbia during the War. The whole hospital had
been captured by the Germans, and the nurses removed
to Bulgaria. She was never tired of telling me how intimate
she had become with the Queen of Bulgaria. She was a
deeply religious woman, and told me when I began to get
better that she had seriously considered whether it was
not her duty to let me die. Fortunately, professional train-
ing was too strong for her moral sense.

All through the time of my convalescence, m spite of
weakness and great physical discomfort, I was exceedingly
happy. Dora was very devoted, and her devotion made
me forget ever3rthing unpleasant. At an early stage of my
convalescence Dora discovered that she was pregnant,
and this was a source of immense happiness to us both.
Ever since the moment when I walked on Richmond
Green with Alys, the desire for children had been growing
stronger and stronger within me, rmtU at last it had become
a consuming passion. When I discovered that I was not
only to survive myself, but to have a child, I became com-
pletely indifferent to the circumstances of convalescence,
although, during convalescence, I had a whole series of
minor diseases. The main trouble had been double pneu-
monia, but in addition to that I had heart disease, kidney
disease, dysentery, and phlebitis. None of these, however,
prevented me from feeling perfectly happy, and in spite
of all gloomy prognostications, no ill effects whatever
remained after my recovery.

Lying in my bed feeling that I was not going to die was
surprisin^y delightful. I had always imagined until then
that I was fundamentally pessimistic and did not greatly
value being alive. I discovered that in this I had been
completely mistaken, and that life was infinitely sweet to
me. Rain in Peking is rare, but during my convalescence
there came heavy' rains bringing tlie delicious smell of
damp earth through the windows, and I used to think how
dreadful it would have been to have never smelt that smell
again. I had the same feeling about the fight of die sun.
and the sound of the wind. Just outside my windo%vs were

182 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell .

some very beautiful acacia trees, which came into blossom
at the first moment when I was well enough to enjoy
them. I have known ever since that at bottom I am glad
to be alive. Most people, no doubt, always know this, but
I did not. ,

I was told that the Qiinese said that they would bury
me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory.
I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I
might have become a god, which would have been very
chic for an atheist.

There was in Peking at that time a Soviet diplomatic
mission, whose members showed great kindness. They had
the only good champagne in Peking, and supplied it liber-
ally for my use, champagne being apparently the only
proper beverage for pneumonia patients. They used to
take first Dora, and later Dora and me, for motor drives
in the neighbourhood of Peking. This was a pleasure, but
a somewhat exciting one, as they were as bold m driving
as they were in revolutions.

I probably owe my life to the Rockefeller Institute in
Peking which provided a serum that killed the pneumo-
cocci. I owe them the more gratitude on this point, as
both before and after I was strongly opposed to them-
politically, and they regarded me with as much horror as
was felt by my nurse.

- The Japanese journalists were continually worrying
Dora to give them interviews when she wanted to be nurs-
ing me. At last she became a little curt with them, so they
caused the Japanese newspapers to say that I was
dead. This news was forwarded by mail from Japan to
America and from America to England. It appeared in the
English newspapers on the same day as the news of my
divorce. Fortunately, the Corut did not believe it, or the
divorce might have been postponed. It provided me with
;the pleasure of reading my obituary notices, which I had
' always desired without expecting my wishes to be fulfilled.
f.One missionary paper, I remember, had an obituary notice
■■of one sentence: “Missionaries may be pardoned for heav-

China

183

ing a sigh- of relief at the news of Mr. Bertrand Russell’s
death.” I fear they must have heaved a sigh of a different ;
sort when they found that I was not dead after all. The
report caused some pain to friends in England. We in'
..Peking knew nothing about it until a telegram came from
my brother enquiring whether I was still alive. He had?
been remarking meanwhile that to die in Peking was not \
the sort of thing I would do.

The most tedious stage of my convalescence was when
I had phlebitis, and had to lie motionless on my back for
six v/eeks. We were very anxious to return home for the
confinement, and as time went on it began to seem doubt-
ful whether we should be able to do so. In these circum-
stances it was difficult not to feel impatience, the more
so as the doctors said there was nothing to do but wait.
However, the trouble cleared up just in time, and on July
10th we were able to leave Belong, though I was still very
weak and could only hobble about mth the help of a stick.

Shortly after my return from China, the British Govern-
ment decided to deal with the question of the Boxer in-
demnity. When the Boxers had been defeated, the subse-
quent treaty of peace provided that the Chinese Govern-
ment should pay an annual sum to all those European
Powers which had been injured by it. The Americans very
wisely decided to forego any payment on this account.
Friends of China in England xuged En^and in vain to do
likewise. At last it was decided that, instead of a punitive
payment, the Chinese should make some payment which
should be profitable to both China and Britain. What form
this payment should take was left to be determined by a
Committee on which there should be two Chinese mem-
bers. While MacDonald was Prime Minister he invited
Lowes Dickinson and me to be members of the Commit-
tee, and consented to our reconunendation of V. K. Ting
and Hu Shih as the Chinese members. When, shortly
afterwards, MacDonald’s Government fell, the succeeding
Conserv^ative Government informed Lowes Dickinson and
myself that our scr%ices would not be wanted on the Cora-

184

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

mittee, and they would not accept either V. K. Ting or
Hu Shih as Chinese members of it, on the ground that we
knew nothing about China. The Chinese Government re-
plied that it desired the two Chinese whom I had recom-
mended and would not have anyone else. This put an end
to the very feeble efforts at securing Chinese friendship.
The only thing that had been secured during the Labour
period of friendship was that Shantung should become a
golf course for the British Navy and should no longer be
open for Chinese trading.

Before I became ill I had undertaken to do a lecture
tour in Japan after leaving China. I had to cut this down
to one lecture, and visits to various people. We spent
twelve hectic days in Japan, days which were far from
. pleasant, though very interesting. Unlike the Chinese, the
■Japanese proved to be destitute of good manners, and
.incapable of avoiding intrusiveness. Owing to my being
still very feeble, we were anxious to avoid all unnecessary
fatigues, but the journalists proved a very difficult matter.
At the first port at which our boat touched, some thirty
journalists were lying in wait, although we had done our
best to travel secretly, and they only discovered our move-
ments through the police. As the Japanese papers had
refused to contradict the news of my death, Dora gave
each of them a typewritten slip saying that as I was dead
I could not be interviewed. They drew in their breath
-through their teeth and said: “Ah! veree funnee!”

We went first to Kobe to visit Robert Young, the editor
of the Japan Chronicle. As the. boat approached the quay,
we saw vast processions with banners marching along,
and to the sxirprise of those who knew Japanese, some of
the banners were expressing a welcome to me. It tunm
out that there was a great strike going on in the dockyards,
and that the police would not tolerate processions excep
in honour of distinguished foreigners, so that this was
their only way of making a demonstration. The strikers
were being led by a Christian pacifist called Kagawa, w o
• ok me to strike meetings, at one of which I niade a
peech. Robert Young was a delightful man, who, having

China

185

left England in the ’eighties, had not shared in the subse-
quent deterioration of ideas. He had in his study a large
picture of Bradlaugh, for whom he had a devoted admira-
tion. His was', I think, the best newspaper I have ever
known, and he had started it with a capital of £■ 10, saved
out of his wages as a compositor. He took me to Nara, a
place of exquisite beauty, where Old Japan was stUl to be
seen. We then fell into the hands of the enterprising edi-
tors of an up-to-date magazine called Kaizo, who con-
ducted us around Kyoto and Tokyo, taking care always
to let the journalists know when we were coming, so that
we were perpetually pursued by flashlights and photo-
graphed even in our sleep. In both places they invited
large numbers of professors to visit us. In both places we
were treated with the utmost obsequiousness 'and dogged
by police-spies. The room next to ours in the hotel would
be occupied by a collection of policemen with a type-
writer. The waiters treated us as if we were royalty, and
walked backwards out of the room. We would say: “Damn
this waiter,” and immediately hear the police typewriter
clicking. At the parties of professors which were given in
our honour, as soon as I got into at all animated conver-
sation with anyone, a flashlight photograph would be
taken, with the result that the conversation was of course
interrupted.

The Japanese attitude -towards- women is somewhat-.
priMtive. In Kyoto we both had mosquito nets with holes
in ’them, so that we were kept awake half the night by
mosquitoes. I complained of this m the morning. Next
evening my mosquito net was mended, but not Dora’s.
When I complained again the next day, they said: “But
we did not know it mattered about the lady.” Once, when
we were in a suburban train with the historian Eileen
Power, who was also travelling in Japan, no seats were
available, but a Japanese kindly got up and offered his
scat to me. I gave it to Dora. Another Japanese then of-
fered me his seat. I gave this to Eileen Power. By this
time the Japanese were so disgusted by my unmanly con-
duct that there was nearly a riot.

186

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

We met only one Japanese whom we really liked, a !
Miss Ito. She was young and beautiful, and lived with a
well-known anarchist, by w^hora she had a son. Dora said
to her: “Are you not afraid that the authorities will do
something to you?” She drew her hand across her throat,
and said: “I know they will do that sooner or later.” At
the time of the earthquake, the police came to the house
where she lived with, the anarchist, and found him and
her and a little nephew whom they believed to be the son,
and informed them that they, were wanted at the police
station. When they arrived at the police station, the three
were put in separate rooms and strangled by the poh'ce,
who boasted that they had not had much trouble with the
child, as they had managed to make friends with him on
the way to the police station. The police in question be-
came national heroes, and school children were set to write ,
essays in their praise.

We made a ten hours’ journey in great heat from Kyoto
to Yokohama. We arrived there just after dark, and were
received by a series of magnesium explosions, each of
which made Dora jump, and increased my fear of a mis-
carriage. I became blind with rage, the only time I have
been so since I tried to strangle FitzGerald.* I pursued
the boys with the flashlights, but being lame, was unable
to catch them, which was fortunate, as I should certainly
have committed murder. Am enterprising photographer
succeeded in photographing me with my eyes blazing. I
should not have known that I could have looked so com-
pletely insane. This photograph was my introduction to
Tokyo. I felt at that moment the same type of passion as
must have been felt by Anglo-Indians during the Mutiny,
or by white men surrounded by a rebel coloured popula-
tion. I realized then that the desire to protect one’s family
from injury at the hands of an alien race is probably the
wildest and most passionate feeling of which man is ca-
pable. My last experience of Japan was the publication in
a patriotic journal of what purported to be my farev/elL.

* Cf. Vol. I, p. 47.

China

187

message to the Japanese nation, nrgmg them to be more
chauvinistic. I had not sent either this or any other fare-
well message to that or any other newspaper.

We sailed from Yokohama by the Canadian Pacific,
and were seen off by the anarchist, Ozuki, and Miss Ito.
On the Empress oj Asia we experienced a sudden change
in the social atmosphere. Dora’s condition was not yet
visible to ordinary eyes, but we saw the ship’s doctor cast
a professional eye upon her, and we learned that he had
communicated Ws observations to the passengers. Con-
sequently, almost nobody would speak to us, though every-
body was anxious to photograph us. The only people willing
to speak to us were Mischa Elman, the violinist, and his
party. As everybody else on the ship wished to speak to
him, they were considerably annoyed by the fact that he
was always in our company. After an uneventful journey,
we arrived in Liverpool at the end of August. It was rain-
ing hard, and everybody complained of the drou^t, so we
felt we had reached home. Dora’s mother was on the dock,
partly to welcome us, but partly to give Dora wise advice,
which she was almost too shy to do. On September 27th
we were married, having succeeded in hurrying up the
King’s Proctor, though this required that I should swear
by Almighty God on Charing Cross platform that Dora
was the woman with whom I had committed the official
adultery. On November 16th, my son John was bom, and
from that moment my children were for many years my
main interest in life.

LETTERS

6 Yu Yang Li
Avenue Joffre
Shanghai, China

^ 6th Oct. [? Nov.] 1920

Dear Sir;

We are very glad to have tlie greatest social philosopher
of world to arrive here in China, so as to salve the Chronic

188

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

deseases of the thought of Chinese Students. Since 1919,
the student’s circle seems to be the greatest hope of the
future of China; as they are ready to welcome to have
revolutionary era in the society' of China. In that year. Dr.
John Dewey had influenced the intellectual class vith
great success.

But I dare to represent most of the Chinese Students
to say a few words to you:

Although Dr. Dev;ey is successful here, but most of our
students are not satisfied with his conservative theory.
Because most of us want to acquire the knowledge of
Anarchism, Syndicalism, Socialism, etc.; in a word, we are
anxious to get the knowledge of the social revolutionai}'
philosophy. We . are the followers of Mr. Kropotkin, and
our aim is to have an anarchical society in China. We
hope you, Sir, to give us fundamentally the thorough Social
philosophy, base on Anarchism. Moreover, we want you
to recorrect the theory of Dr. Dewey, the American Phi-
losopher. We hope you have the absolute freedom in
China, not the same as in England. So we hope you to
have a greater success than Dr. Dewey here.

I myself am old member of the Peking Govt. University,
and met- you in Shanghai many times, the first time is
in “The Great Oriental Hotel,” the first time of your
reception here, in the evening.

The motto, you often used, of Lao-Tzu ought to be
changed in the first word, as “Creation without Posses-
sion . , .” is better than the former translative; and it is
more correctly according to what you have said: the
creative impulsive and the possessive impulse.” Do you
think it is right?

Your Fraternally Comrade,
Johnson Yuan

{Secretary of the Chinese Anar-
chist-Communist Association)

China

189

Changsha

October 11th, 1920

Dear Sir:

We beg to inform you that the educational system of
our province is just at infancy and is unfortunately further
weekened by the fearful disturbances of the civil war of
late years, so that the guidance and assistances must be
sought to sagacious scholars.

The extent to which your moral and intellectual power-
has reached is so high that all the people of this country
are paying the greatest regard to you. We, Hunanese,
eagerly desire to hear your powerful instructions as a
compass.

A few days ago, through Mr. Lee-Shuh-Tseng, our
representative at Shangjiai, we requested you to visit Hu-
nan and are very grateful to have your kind acceptance.
A general meeting win therefore be summoned on the
25th instant in order to receive your instructive advices.
Now we appoint Mr. Kun-Chao-Shuh to represent us aU
to welcome you sincerely. Please come as soon as possible.

We are. Sir,

Your obedient servants.

The General Educational
Association of Hunan
(Seal)

To The Nation I wrote the following account on the
Yiangtse, 28th October, 1920:*

Since landing in China we have bad a most curious and
interesting time, spent, so far, entirely among Chinese stu-
dents and journalists, who are more or less Europeanised.
I have delivered innumerable lectures — on Einstein, edu-
cation and social questions. The eagerness for knowledge
on the part of students is quite extraordinary. When one
begins to speak, their eyes have the look of starving men
begiiming a feast. Everywhere they treat me with a most

* Published in The Nation, January 8th, 1921.

190 ^

The A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

embarrassing respect. The day after I landed in Shanghai
they gave a vast dmner to us, at which they welcomed me
as Confucius the Second. All the Chinese newspapers that
day in Shanghai had my photograph. Both Miss Black and
I had to speak to innumerable schools, teachers’ confer-
ences, congresses, etc. It is a country of curious contrasts.
Most of Shanghai is quite European, almost American;
the names of streets, and notices and advertisements are
in English (as well as Chinese). The buildings are mag-
nificent offices and banks; everything looks very opulent.
But the side streets are still quite Chinese. It is a vast city
about the , size of Glasgow. The Europeans almost all look
villainous and ill. One of the leading Chinese newspapers
invited us to lunch, in a modem building, completed in
1917, with all the latest plant (except linotype, which can’t
be used for Chinese characters). The editorial staff gave
us a Chinese meal at the top of the house with Chinese
wine made of rice, and iimumerable dishes which we ate
with chopsticks. Wien we had finished eating they re-
marked that one of their number was fond of old Chinese
music, and would like to play to us. So he produced an
instrument with seven strings, made by himself on the
ancient model, out of black wood two thousand years old,
which he had taken from a temple. The instrument is
played with the finger, like a guitar, but is laid flat on a
table, not held in the hand. They assured us that the music
he played was four, thousand years old, but that I ima^ne
must be an overstatement. In any case, it was exquisitely
beautiful, very delicate, easier for a European ear than
more recent music (of which I have heard a good deal).
When the music was over they became again a staff of
bustling journalists.

From Shanghai our Chinese friends took us for
nights to Hangchow on the Western Lake, said to be the
most beautiful scenery in China. This was merely holiday.
The Western Lake is not large — about the size of Gras-
mere — it is surrounded by wooded hills, on which there
are innumerable pagodas and temples. It has been beauti-
fied by poets and emperors for thousands of years. (Ap-

China

191

parently poets in ancient China were as rich as financiers
,in modem Europe.) We spent one day in the hills — a
twelve hour expedition in Sedan chairs — and the next in
seeing country houses, monasteries, etc. on islands in the
lake.

Chinese religion is curiously cheerful. When one arrives
at a temple, they give one a cigarette and a cup of deli-
cately fragrant tea. Then they show one round. Buddhism,
which one thinks of as ascetic, is here quite gay. The
saints have fat stomachs, and are depicted as people who
thoroughly enjoy life. No one seems to believe the religion,
not,even-the ■priests. Nevertheless, one sees many rich new
temples.

The country houses are equally hospitable — one is
shewn round and given tea. They are just like Chinese
pictures, with many arbours where one can sit, with every-
thing made for beauty and nothing for comfort — except
in the grandest rooms, where there will be a little hideous
European furniture.

The most delicious place we saw on the Western Lake
was a retreat for scholars, built about eight hundred years
ago on the lake. Scholars certainly had a pleasant life in
the old China.

Apart from the influence of Europeans, China makes
the impression of what Europe would have become if the
eighteenth century had gone on till now without indus-
trialism or the French Revolution. People seem to be ra-
tional hedonists, knowing very well how to obtain happi-
ness, exquisite through intense cultivation of their artistic
sensibilities, differing from Europeans through the fact that
they , prefer enjoyrfi'ent- to power. People laugh a great
deal in all classes, even the lowest.

The Chinese cannot pronounce my name, or write it in
their characters. They call me “Luo-Su” which is the
nearest they can manage. This, they can both pronounce
and print.

From Hangchow we went back to Shanghai, thence by
rail to Nanking, an almost deserted city. TTie wall is
hventy-three miles in circumference, but most of what it

192

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

encloses is country. The city was destroyed at the end of
the Taiping rebellion, and again injiured in the Revolution
of 1911, but it is an active educational centre, eager for
news of Einstein and Bolshevism.

From Nanking we went up the Yiangtse to Hangkow,
about three days’ journey, through very lovely scenery—
thence by train to Cheng-Sha, the capital of Hu-Nan,
where a great educational conference was taking place.
There are about three hundred Emopeans in Cheng-Sha,
but Europeanisation has not gone at all far. The town is
just like a mediaeval town — narrow streets, every house
a shop with a gay sign hung out, no traffic possible except
Sedan chairs and a few rickshaws. The Europeans have a
J few factories, a few banks, a few missions and a hospital
— the whole gamut of damaging, and repairing body and
soul by western methods. -Tlie Governor ,of Hu-Nan is the
5 most virtuous of all the Governors of Chinese provinces,
and entertained us last night at a magnificent banquet.
Professor and Mrs. Dewey were present; it was the first
time I had met them. The Governor cannot talk any
European language, so, though I sat next to him, I could
only exchange compliments through an interpreter. But I
got a good impression of him; he is certainly very anxious
to promote education, which seems the most crying need
of China. Without it, it is hard to see how better govern-
ment can be introduced. It must be said that bad govern-
ment seems somewhat less disastrous in China than it
would be in a European nation, but this is perhaps a
superficial impression which time may correct.

We are now on our way to Pekin, which we hope to
reach on October 31st.

Bertrand Russell

Tokyo, Japan
December 25, 1920

Dear Sir: ,

We heartily thank you for your esteemed favour ot me
latest date and al^o for the manuscnpt on The Prospec
of Bolshevik Russia,” which has just arrived.

China

193

When a translation of your article on “Patriotism” ap-
peared in qur New Year issue of the Kaizo now already
on sale, the blood of the young Japanese was boiled with
enthusiasm to read it. All the conversations everywhere,
among gentlemen classes, students and laborers centered
upon your article, so great was the attraction of your
thoughts to them.

The only regret was that the government has requested
us to omit references you made to Japan in your article as
much as possible, and we were obliged to cut out some of
your valuable sentences. We trust that you will generously
sympathize with us in the position in which we are placed
and that you wUl excuse us for complying with the govern-
ment’s request.

Hereafter, however, we shall publish your articles in the
original as well as in a translation according the dictate
of our principle.

The admiration for you of the millions of our young
men here is something extraordinary.

Your principle is identical with that of ourselves, so that
as long as we live we wish to be with you. But that our
country is stUl caught in the obstinate conventional mesh
of 3,000 years standing, so that reforms cannot be carried
out, is a cause of great regret. We have to advance step by
step. Your publications have served as one of the most
important factors to move our promising young men of
J apan in their steadfast advancement.

In the past thirty odd years, physical and medical sci-
ences have especially advanced in Japan. But it is a ques-
tion how much progress we have made in the way of
original inventions. Yet we are confident that in pure sci-
ence we are by no means behind America in advancement.
Only the majority of our country men are still ensla%'ed
by the ideas of class distinctions and other backward
thoughts, of rvhich we are greatly ashamed. The Japanese
military clique and the gentlemen clique have been anxious
to lead Japan in the path of aggression, thereby only invit-
ing the antipathy of the nation. The present Japanese
world of thought has been subject to an undercurrent of

194

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

■ Struggle. We will be very much grieved if our country
were regarded as an aggressive nation because of that.

One half of our government officials and almost eighty
per cent of the army men have been caught in dreams of
aggression, it is true. But recently there has been much
awakening from that.

We have confidence in our young men who have begun
to awaken, so that they may advance in the path of civili-
zation not to disappoint the world. We trust that you vnll
write your articles with the object m view to encoxnage
our young men in their efforts for advancement.

Please give our regards to Miss Black.

Yours respectfully,

S. Yamamoto

Humbug is mtemational.

To Ottoline Morrell

[1921]

The other day Dora and I went to a Chinese feast ^ven
by the Chinese Students here. They made speeches full of
delicate wit, in the style of 18th century France, with a
mastery of English that quite amazed me. The Chinese
Charge d’ Affaires said he had been asked to speak on
Chinese Politics — he said the urgent questions were the
General Election, economy and limitation of aimaments
— he spoke quite a long time, saying only things that
might have been said in a political speech about EnglaM,
and which yet were quite all right for China ■ when he
sat dovm he had not committed himself to anything at all,
but had suggested (without ever saydng) that Chinas
problems were worse than ours. The Chinese constan y
remind me of Oscar Wilde in his first trial when he
thought wit would pull one through anything, and fc^
himself in the grip of a great machine that cared nothmg
for human values. I read of a Chinese General the other

China

195

day, whose troops had ventured to resist a Japanese at-
tack, so the Japanese insisted that he should apologise to
their Consul. He replied that he had no uniform grand
enough for such an august occasion, and therefore To his
profound sorrow he must forego the pleasure of visiting a
man for whom he had so high an esteem. Wiien they
nevertheless insisted, he called the same day on all the
other Consuls, so that it appeared as if he were pajing a
mere visit of ceremony. Then all Japan raised a howl that
he had insulted the whole Japanese nation.

I would do anything in the world to help the Chinese,
but it is difficult. They are like a nation of artists, with
all their good and bad points. Imagine Gertier and [Augus-
tus] John and Lytton set to govern the British Empire, and
you will have some idea how China has been governed for
2,000 years. Lytton is very like an old fashioned China-
man, not at all like the modem westernized t>-pe.

I must stop. All my love.

Your B.

From my brother Frank Telegraph Hou.sc

Chichester
27 January 1921

Dear Bertie:

The Bank to w'hich I have rashly given a Guarantee is
threatening to sell me up, so that by the time you return I
shall probably be a pauper w'alking the streets. It is not an
alluring prospect for my old age but I dare say it will
afford great joy to Elizabeth.

I have not seen the elusive little Wrinch again although
she seems to spend as much time in London as at Girton.
I did not know a don had so much freedom of movement
in terar time.

Did you know that our disagreeable Aunt Gertrude was
running the Punch Bowl Inn on Hindhcad? I feel tempted
to go and stay there for a week end but perhaps slic would
not take me in. The Aunt Agatha was veiy' bitter about it

196

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

when I last saw her and said the horrible woman was
running all over Hindhead poisoning people’s minds
against her by saying the most shocking things — we can
guess what about. I think when one reflects on the P.L.
[Pembroke Lodge] atmosphere it is amusing to think of
the Aunt Agatha becoming an object of scandal in her old
age.* Naturally she feels that something must be seriously
wrong with the world for such a thing to be possible. She
was quite amusingly and refreshingly bitter about Ger-
trude and next time I see her I will draw her out a bit.

I am afraid I have no more news to tell you: my mind
is entirely occupied with thoughts of what it is like to be
a bankrupt — and how — and where — to live on noth-
ing a year. The problem is a novel one and I dislike all its
solutions.

Yoitrs affectionately,

Russell

The Japan Chronicle
P.O. Box No. 91 Sannomiya
Kobe, Japan
January 18, 1921

Dear Mr. Russell:

Your books have always been so helpful to me that
when I heard you were coming out here I ventured to send
you a copy of the Chronicle in the hope that you might
fin d something of interest in it from time to time. Please
do not trouble about the subscription; I am very ^ad if
the paper has been of service.

When I was in England a year ago I hoped to have the
opporiunity of a talk with you, and Francis Hirst tried
to arrange it but found you were away from London at the
time. Do you intend to visit Japan before you return to
England? If so I shall hope to have a chance of meetmg

She was suspiciously friendly with her chauffeur. The Duke of Bed-
ford gave her a car, which she was too nervous ever to use, but sne
kept the chauffeur.

China

197

you, and if I can do anything here in connection with such
a visit please let me know.

I shall be glad to read your new book on Bolshevnsm.
Since you wrote you will perhaps have noticed a review of
Bolshevism in Theory and Practice. It may perhaps be
interesting to you to know that I can remember your
fathef s wUl being upset in the Courts, and that as a result
I have followed your career with interest.

Sincerely yours,
Robert Young

The Japan Chronicle
P.O. Box No. 91 Sannomiya
Kobe, Japan
January 2, 1922

Dear Mr. Russell:

It is a long time since August, when you wrote to me
from the Empress of Asia, and I ought to ha\’e acknowl-
edged your letter earlier, but with my small stall I am
always kept very busy, and my correspondence tends to
accumulate.

I have just heard from Mrs. Russell of the birth of an
heir, and I congratulate you in no formal sense, for it has
given us great pleasure and much relief to learn that Mrs.
Russell did not suffer from her experiences in Japan. I
published the letter you sent me, and I think some good
has been done by the protest. So few people have courage
to protest against an evil of this character, lest worse
things may befall them in the way of criticism.

What a farce the Washington Conference is. From the
first I doubted the sincerity of this enthusiasm for peace
on the part of those who made the war. Perhaps it is the
head rather than the heart that is at fault. Tlie statesmen
do not seem to realise that so long as the old policies arc
pursued, we shall have the same results, and that a limita-
tion of armaments to the point they have reached during
the war puts us in a worse position regarding the burden

198

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

carried the danger of explosion than in 1914. Japan
has sulkily accepted the ratio proposed by America, but
is supporting the French demand for more submarines.
France is showing herself a greater danger to Europe than
Germany ever was. China has been betrayed at the Wash-
ington Conference, as we e:q)ected. The Anglo-Japanese
Alliance has been scrapped, to be replaced"by a Four-
Power' agreement which is still more dangerous to China.
Her salvation, unhappily, lies in the jealousies of the
Powers. United, the pressure on her will be increased. But
I doubt whether the Senate will endorse the treaty, once
its fun implications are understood.

You are ver}'^ busy, I note, and I hope that you will be
able to make people think. But it is a wicked and perverse
generation, I am afraid. Sometimes I despair. It looks as
if an the ideals with which I started life had been over-
thrown. But I suppose when one is weU into the sixties,
the resilience of youth has disappeared.

By the way, I have suggested to the Conway Memorial
Committee that you be asked to deliver the annual lecture.
K you are asked, I hope you will see your way to consent.
Moncure Conv/ay was a fine character, always prepared
to champion the oppressed and defend free speech. He
stood by Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant when they were
prosecuted for the publication of the Fndts of Philosophy,
as he stood by Foote when prosecuted on account of the
Freethinker, though personally objecting to that style of
propaganda.

I have gven Mrs. Russell some Japan news in a letter
I have just written to her, so I will not repeat here, I hope
y^ou are receiving the Japan Weekly Chronicle regularly,
so that ymu can keep in touch with news in this part of the
v/orld. It has been sent to you care of George Allen &
Unwin. Now I have ymur Chelsea address I will have it
sent there. For some years our Weekly has been steadily
increasing in circulation, going all over the world. But
from the 1st of this year the Japanese Post Office has
doubled the foreign postage rates, which makes 6 yen for

China

199

postage alone per annum on a copy of the Weekly, and
I am afraid our circulation will suffer accordingly.

It is very good to hear that you are completely restored
to health. Mrs. Russell says you would scarcely he recog-
nised by those who only saw you in Japan. Your visit was
a great pleasure to me. For years I had admired your
writings and been encouraged by the stand you had taken
in public affairs when even the stoutest seemed to waver.
It therefore meant much to me to make your acquaintance
and I hope your friendship.

With our united good wishes.

Sincerely yours,
Robert Young

5 New Square
Lincolns Inn, W.C.2
2 June 1921

My dear Bertie:

How kind of you to write; and to say such kind things.
Until there was a false rumour of your death I never really
knew how very fond I am of you. I didn’t believe the
rumour, but the mere idea that I might never see you
again had never come into my mind; and it was an intense
relief when the Chinese Embassy ascertained that the
rumour was false. You will take care of your health now,
won’t you?

The Political situation is, as always, damnable — mil-
lions of unemployed — soldiers camping in the parks —
but an excellent day yesterday for the Derby which is all
that anyone apparently cares about

Einstein lectures at King’s College in 10 days time, but
I can’t get a ticket. I’ve been reading some of Einstein’s
actual papers and they give me a most tremendous im-
pression of the clearness of his thoughts.

We spent a delightful Whitsuntide at the Shiffolds:
Tovey* was there and talked endlessly and played Beetho-
ven Sonatas and Bach, so I was very happy.

* The music critic.

200

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

_ I enclose a letter for Miss Black ~ I’m afraid it’s a Httle
inadequate but it’s so difficult to write to a person one has
never seen. I hope this experience with her and her de-
voted nursing of you will form an eternal basis for vou
both. ^

Dora sends her love.

Yours fraternally and
affectionately,

C. R Sanger

From Joseph Conrad Oswalds

Bishopsboume, Kent
2. Nov. 1921

My Dear Russell:

We were glad to hear that your wife feels none the
worse for the exertions and agitations of the -move.*
Please ^ve her our love and assure her that she is fre-
quently in our thoughts.

As to yourself I have been dwelling with you mentally
for several days between the covers of your book^ — an
habitation of great charm and most fascinatingly fur-
nished; not to speak of the wonderful quality of light that
reigns in there. Also all the windows (I am trying to write
in images) are, one feels, standing wide open. Nothing
less stuffy — of the Mansions of the mind — could be
conceived! I am sorry for the philosophers (p. 212-end)
who (like the rest of us) cannot have their cake and eat
if. There’s no exactitude in the vision or in the words. I
have a notion that we are condemned in all things to the
a-peu-pres, which no scientific passion for weighing and
measuring will ever do away with.

It is very possible that I haven’t understood your pages
-T— but the good try I have had was a delightful experience.
I suppose you are enough of a pMlosopber not to have
expected more from a common mortal,

* The move from one abode to another in Z.ondoa after 'vre returned
from China.

t The Analysis of Mind.

China

201

I don’t believe that Charles I was executed (pp. 245-
246 et seq.) but there is not enough paper left here to
explain why. Next time perhaps. For I certainly intend to
meet you amongst your Chinoiseries at the very earliest
fitting time.

Always affectly yours,

J. Conrad

Oswalds

Bishopsboume, Kent
18th Nov. 1921

My Dear Russell:

Jessie must have sent yesterday our congratulations and
words of welcome to the “comparative stranger” who has
come to stay with you (and take charge of the household
as you will soon discover). Yes! Paternity is a ^eat
experience of which the least that can be said is that it is
eminently worth having — if only for the deepened sense
of fellowship with all men it gives one. It is the only
experience perhaps whose universality does not make it
common but invests it with a sort of grandeur on that very
account. My affection goes out to you both, to him who is
without speech and thought as yet and to you who have
spoken to men profoundly with effect and authority about
the nature of the mind. For your relation to each other
will have its poignant moments arising out of the very love
and loyalty binding you to each other.

Of all the incredible things that come to pass this —
that there should be one day a Russell bearing mine for
one of his names is surely the most marvellous. Not even
my horoscope could have disclosed that for I verily believe
ftat all the sensible stars would have refused to combine
in that extravagant maimer over my cradle. However it
has come to pass (to the surprise of the Universe) and
all I can say is that I am profoundly touched — more
than I can express — that I should have been present to
your mind in that way and at such a time.

202

The Autobiograplry of Bertrand Russell

Please kiss your Trffe’s hand for me and teli her that in
the obscure bewildered masculine v>'ay (which is not cmite
unintelligent however) I take part in her gladness. Since

your delightful visit here she was much in our thoughts

and I will confess we felt very optimistic. She has j^tified
it fully and it is a ^eat joy to think of her with two men
in the house. She will have her hands full presently. I can
only hope that John Conrad has been bom with a disposi-
tion towards indulgence which he will consistently exercise
towards his parents. I don't think that I can wish you any-
thing better and so with my dear love to all three of vou,
lam

always yours,

Joseph Cokrad

P.S. I am dreadfully offended at your associating me with
some undesirable acquaintance of yours^ who obwously
should not have been allowed inside the B. Museum
reading-room. I wish you to tmderstand that my attitude
towards [the] King Charles question, is not phantastic but
philosophical and I shall try to make it clear to you later
when you will be more in a state to follow my reasoning
closely. Knowing from my own experience I imagine that
it’s no use talking to you seriously just now.

184 Ebuiy Street
S.W.I

Saturda}^ [December, 1921]

Dear Bertie: . . . n

The book is The Invention of a Tiesv Reli^on by Pro-
fessor Chamberlain. If you want to consult it, here it is
and perhaps you would let me have it back anon.

I am so glad that you and Dora can come to luncheon
to meet Dr. Wise on Wednesday and teli Dora that 1:30

*W'Lo did not agree that Julins Caesar is dead, and when I ashed
why, replied: “Because I am Julius Caesar.”

China

203

will do beautifully. I am also asking B. K. Martin, a very
intelligent young man who is now teaching history at
Magdalene, having got Ms B.A. last year. He wrote to me
three days ago and said “if you would introduce me to
Bertrand Russell I should be forever in your debt. I’d
rather meet Mm than any other living (or dead) creature.”
I felt that in view of tMs pre-eminence over the shades of
Plato, Julius' Caesar, Cleopatra, Descartes, Ninon dc
I’Enclos and Napoleon the Great, you would consent to
sMne upon him! Also he is extremely clever and a nice
boy.

Yours ever,

Eileen Power

I was asked to dine wth the Webbs the other day, but I
don’t think I ever shall be again for we nearly came to
blows over the relative merits of China and Japan!

Sept. 22, 1923
British Legation
Adis Ababa

Dear Bertie:

I have just read with great pleasure your Problem of
China, where I spent some years. It is a fact that the
Treaty of Versailles (article 131) provided for the resto-
ration of the astronomical instruments to China, but I am
under the impression that the obligation has not been
carried out. If so, I fear you cannot count it among the
“important benefits” secured to the world by that treaty.
Perhaps you might suggest to your friends in China the
occupation of Swabia or Oldenburg to secure its enforce-
ment. I must say, however, in fairness to the Treaty of
Versailles, that you do it less than justice. You have over-
looked article 246, under which “Germany will hand over
to H.B.M.'s Government the skull of the Sultan Mkw.a-
wa. ...”

I tliink, if I may say so, that on page 24 (top) ' animal

204

The Autobiography of Bertrand Riissell

should be “annual.” I feel sure the Temple of Heaven was
never the scene of the sort of sacrifice that pleased the
God of Abel.

Your a fee cousin,
Claud Russell

Foreign Office
S.W.l

3 1st May, 1924

My dear Russell:

For some time past. His Majesty’s Government have
been considering the best means of allocating and admin-
istering the British share of the China Boxer Indemnity,
which, it has been decided, should be devoted to purposes
mutually beneficial to British and Chinese interests.

In order to obtain the best results from the policy thus
indicated, it has been decided to appoint a committee to
advise His Majesty’s Government; and I am approaching -
you in the hope that you may be able to serve on this
Committee, feeling confident that your experience would
be of the greatest assistance in this matter, which will so
deeply and permanently affect our relations with China.

The terms of reference will probably be as follows: —

“In view of the decision of His Majesty’s Government
to devote future payments of the British share of the
Boxer Indemnity to purposes mutually beneficial to Brit-
ish and Chinese interests.

“To investigate the different objects to which these pay-
ments should be allocated, and the best means of securing
the satisfactory administration of the funds, to hear wit-
nesses and to make such recommendations as may seem
desirable.”

For the sake of efficiency, the Committee will be kept as
small as possible, especially at the outset of its proceed-
ings. But it will of course be possible to appoint “ad hoc
additional members for special subjects, if such a course
should recommend itself later on. The following are now

China

205

being approached, as representing the essential elements
which should go to the composition of the Committee:

Chairman: Lord Phillimore.

Foreign Office: Sir John Jordan and Mr. S. P. Water-
low.

Department of Overseas Trade: Sir WilEam Clark.

House of Commons: Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, M.P,

Finance: Sir Charles Addis.

Education: Mr. Lowes Dickinson and The Honour-
able Bertrand Russell.

Women: Dame Adelaide Anderson.

China: A suitable Chinese.

It will be understood that the above list is of a tentative
character and should be regarded as confidential.

I enclose a brief memorandum which shows the present
position with regard to the Indemnity, and to the legisla-
tion which has now been introduced into the House. I
trust that you wiU be able to see your way to undertake
this work, to which I attach the highest importance.

Yours very sincerely,

J. Ramsay MacDonald

Note on a scrap of paper:

“It is desired that the Committee should consist wholly
of men with an extensive knowledge of China and its
affairs,”

MEMORANDUM ON THE BOXER INDEMNITY
by

Bertrand Russell

The Boxer Indemnity Bill, now in Committee, provides
that what remains unpaid of the Boxer Indemnity shall be
spent on purposes to the mutual advantage of Great Brit-
ain & China. It does not state that these purposes are to
be educational. In the opinion of all who know China
(except solely as a field for capitalist exploitation), it is
of the utmost importance that an Amendment should be

206 The A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

adopted specifying Chinese education as the sole purpose
to which the money should be devoted. The following are
the chief grounds in favour of such an Amendment:

(1) That this would be the expenditure most useful
tp China.

(2) That no other-course would produce a good effect
on influential Chinese opinion.

(3) That the interests of Great Britain, which are to be
considered, can only be secured by w innin g the good will
of the Chinese.

(4) That any other course would contrast altogether
too unfavourably with the action of America, which long
ago devoted all that remained of the American share of
the Boxer indemnity to Chinese education.

(5) That the arguments alleged in favour of other
courses all have a corrupt motive, i.e. are designed for the
purpose of securing private profit through Govermnent
action.

For these reasons, it is profoundly desirable that La-
bour Members of .Parliament should take action to secure
the necessary Amendment before it is too late.

The China Indemnity Bill, in its present form, pro-
vides that the remainder of the Boxer Indemnity shall be
applied to “purposes, educational or other,” which are
mutually beneficial to Great Britain and China.

Sir Walter de Frece proposed in Committee that the
words “connected with education” should be substituted
for “educational or other.”

It is much to be hoped that the House of Commons wiU
carry this Amendment on the Report stage. Certain inter-
ests are opposed to the - Amendment for reasons with
which Labour can have no sympathy. The Government
thinks it necessary to placate these interests, but main-
tains that the Committee to be appointed will be free to
decide in favour of education only. The Committee, how-
ever, is appointed by Parliament, and one third of its
members are to retire every two years; there is therefore
no guarantee against its domination by private interests m
the future.

China

207

The Bill in its present form opens the door to corrup-
tion, is not calculated to please Chinese public opinion,
displays Great Britain as less enlightened than America
and Japan, and therefore fails altogether to achieve its
nominal objects. The Labour Party ought to make at least
an attempt to prevent the possibility of the misapplication
of public money to purposes of private enrichment. This
will, be secured by the insertion of the words “connected
with education” in Clause 1, after the word “purposes.”

Bertrand Russell

Berlin August 22 ’24

Dear Russell:

Here is an abbreviated translation of C. L. Lo’s letter
to me (Lo & S. N. Fu being S. Hu [Hu Shih]’s chief
disciples, both in Berlin) .

“Heard from China that Wu pei fu advised Ch. Gov-
emm. to use funds for railways. Morning Post said (4
weeks ago) that Brit. Gov’t cabled Ch. Gov’t to send a
delegate. If so, it would be terrible. Already wrote to
London Ch. stud. Club to inquire Chu. If report true, try
to cancel action by asking Tsai to mount horse with his
prestige. In any case, Brit. Gov’t still has full power. We
have written trying to influence Chu, but on the other
hand you please write to Lo Su [Russell] to influence Brit.
For. Ofiice, asking him to recommend Tsai if nothing else
is possible. There is already a panic in Peking cduc’l
world. There was a cable to Brit. Gov’t, and another to
Tsai asking him to go to London. . . .”

Another letter, from Chu, came to me last night;

“I did give my consent (?) to the nomination (?) of
Mr. Ting. I quite agree (?) with you Ting is the most
desirable man for the post, but recently I learnt that Pe-
king (For. Office?) is in favor of (?) Dr. C. H. Wang,
who is not in Europe. I doubt whether the latter would
accept the appt’m’t. ... I will talk over this question with
Mr. Russell when he returns to town.”

I know Wang (brother of C. T. Wang of Kuo Ming

208

The AuiobiograpJty of Bertrand Russell

Tang [National People Part}'] fame), C. H. Wang is a fine
gentle fellow, recentl}^ worked in business and a Christian.
One should emphasize the personal attrac&^eness and
goodness but do the opposite to his suitability to this
in-its-nature roughneck tussle of a job.

My noodles are getting cold and my Heines helles bier
is getting warm 200 meters away where my wife is wmting.

Excuse me 1000 times for not reading this letter over
again.

Yrs ever,
Y.R. Chao

IV

With my return from China in September 1921, my life
entered upon a less dramatic phase, with a new emotional
centre. From adolescence untU the completion of Prindpia
Mathematical my fundamental preoccupation had been
intellectual. I wanted to understand and to make others
understand; also I wished to raise a monument by which I
mi^t be remembered, and on account of which I might
feel that I had not lived in vain. From the outbreak of the
First World War until my return from China, social ques-
tions occupied the centre of my emotions: the War and
Soviet Russia alike gave me a sense of tragedy, and I had
hopes that mankind might learn to live in some less painful
way. I tried to discover some secret of wisdom, and to pro-
claim it with such persuasiveness that the world should
listen and agree. But, gradually, the ardour cooled and the
hope grew less; I did not change my views as to how men
should live, but I held them with less of prophetic ardour
and with less expectation of success in my campaigns.

Ever since the day, in the summer of 1894, when I
walked with Alys on Richmond Green after hearing the
medical verdict, I had tried to suppress my desire for chil-
dren. It had, however, grown continually stronger, until it
had become almost insupportable. \Wien my first child
was bom, in November 1921, I felt an immense release of
pent-up emotion, and during the next ten years my main
purposes were parental. Parental feeling, as I have experi-
enced it, is verj'' complex. Hierc is, first and foremost,
sheer animal affection, and dcliglu in watching what is
charming in the ways of the young. Next, there is the sense
of inescapable responsibility, providing a purpose for
daily activities which scepticism docs not easily question.
Then there is an egoistic clement, which is verv’ danger-
ous: the hope that one’s children may succeed where one

211

212

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

has failed, that they may carry on one’s work when death
or senility puts an end to one’s own efforts, and, in any
case, that they will supply a biolo^cal escape from death,
making one’s own life part of the whole stream, and not a
mere stagnant puddle without any overflow into the future.
All this I experienced, and for some years it filled my life
with happiness and peace.

The first thing was to find somewhere to live. I tried to
rent a flat, but I was both politically and morally unde-
sirable, and landlords refused to have me as a tenant. So
I bought a freehold house in Chelsea, No. 31 Sydney
Street, where my two older children were bom. But it did
not seem good for children to live aU the year in London,
so in the spring of 1922 we acquired a house in Cornwall,
at Porthcumo, about four miles from Land’s End. From
then vmtil 1927 we divided our time about equally be-
tween London and Cornwall; after that year, we spent no
time in London and less in Cornwall.

The beauty of the Cornish coast is inextricably mixed
in my memories with the ecstasy of watching two healthy
happy children learning the joys of sea and rocks and sun
and storm. I spent a great deal more time with them
than is possible for most fathers. During the six months of
the year we spent in Cornwall we had a fixed and leisurely
routine. During the morning my wife and I worked while
the children were in the care of a nurse, and later a
governess. After lunch we aU went to one or other of the
many beaches that were within a walk of our house. The
children played naked, bathing or climbing or making
sand castles as the spirit moved them, and we, of course,
shared in these activities. We came home very hungry to
a very late and very large tea; then the children were put
to bed and the adults reverted to their grown-up pursuits.
In my memory, which is of course fallacious, it was always
sunny, and always warm after April. But in April the
winds were cold. One April day, when Kate’s age was rivo
^ears three and a half months, I heard her talking to her-
lelf and wrote down what she said:

Second Marriage

213

The North wind blows over the North Pole.

The daisies hit the grass.

The wind blows the bluebells down.

The North wind blows to the w'ind in the South.

She did not know that any one was listening, and she cer-
tainly did not know what “North Pole” means.

In the circumstances it was natural that I should be-
come interested in education. I had already written briefly
on the subject in Principles of Social Reconstruction, but
now it occupied a large part of my mind. I wrote a book,
On Education, Especially in Early Childhood, which was
published in 1926 and had a verj' large sale. It seems to
me now somewhat unduly optimistic in its psychologj^,
but as regards values I find nothing in it to recant, al-
though I think now that the methods I proposed with very
young children were unduly harsh.

It must not be supposed that life during these six years
from the autumn of 1921 to the autumn of 1927 was
all one long summer idyll. Parenthood had made it imper-
ative to cam money. The purchase of two houses had
exhausted almost aU the capital that remained to me.
WTien I returned from China I had no obvious means of
making money, and at first I suffered considerable anxiety.
I took whatever odd journalistic jobs were oficred me:
while my son John was being bom, I wrote an article on
Chinese pleasure in fireworks, although concentration on
so remote a topic was difficult in the circumstances. In
1922 I published a book on China, and in 1923 (\’.-ith
my wife Dora) a book on The Prospects of Industrial
Civilization, but neither of these brought much money. I
did better with two small books, The A.B.C. of Atoms
(1923) and The A.B.C. of Relativity (1925), and with
two other small books, Icarus or The Future of Science
(1924) and What I Believe (1925). In 1924 I earned a
good deal by a lecture tour in America. But I remained
rather poor until the book on education in 1926. .Mtcr
that, until 1933, I prospered financially, especially with

214

The A utobiography of Berlrmtd Russell

Marriage and Morals (1929) and The Conquest of Hap-
piness (1930). Most of my work during these years was
popular, and was done in order to make money, but I did
also some more technical work. There was a new edition
of Principia Mathematica in 1925, to which I made var-
ious additions; and in 1927 I published The Analysis of
Matter, which is in some sense a companion volume to
The Analysis of Mind, begun in prison and published in
1921. I also stood for Parliament in Qielsea in 1922 and
1923, and Dora stood in 1924,

In 1927, Dora and I came to a decision, for which we
were equally responsible, to found a school of our own k
order that our children might be educated as we thought
best. We believed, perhaps mistakenly, that children need
the companionship of a group of other children, and that,
therefore, we ou^t no longer to be content to bring up
our children without others. But we did not know of any
existing school that seemed to us in any way satisfactor}'.
We wanted an unusual combination: on the one hand,
we disliked prudery and religious instruction and a great
many restraints on freedom which are taken for granted
in conventional schools; on the other hand, we could not
agree with most “modem” educationists in thinking scho-
lastic instraction unimportant, or in advocating a complete
absence of discipline. We therefore endeavoured to collect
a group of about twenty children, of roughly the same
ages as John and Kate, with a view to keeping these
same children throughout their school years.

For the purposes of the school we rented my brother’s
house. Telegraph House, on the South Downs, between
Chichester and Petersfield, This owed its name to having
been a semaphore station in the time of George HI, one
of a string of such stations by which messages were flashed
between Portsmouth and London. Probably the news of
Trafalgar reached London in this way.

The original house was quite small, but my brother
gradually added to it. He was passionately devoted to the
place, and wrote about it at length in his autobiography,

Second Marriage

215

which he called My Life arid Adventures. The house v.’as
ugly and rather absurd, but the situation was superb.
There were enonnous views to East and South and West;
in 'one direction one saw over the Sussex Weald to Leith
HjII, in another one saw the Isle of Wight and the liners
approaching Southampton. There was a tower with large
windows on all four sides. Here I made my study, and I
have never known one w'ith a more beautiful outlook.

With the house went two hundred and thirty acres of
wild downland, partly heather and bracken, but mostly
virgin forest — magnificent beech trees, and yews of vast
age and imusual size. The woods were full of every land of
wild life, including deer. The nearest houses were a few
scattered farms about a mile away. For fifty miles, going
eastward, one could walk on footpaths over unenclosed
bare downs.

It is no wonder that my brother loved the place. But
he had speculated unwisely, and lost everj’ penny that he
possessed. I offered him a much higher rent than he could
have obtained from anyone else, and he was compelled
by poverty to accept my offer. But he hated it, and c\'cr
after bore me a grudge for inhabiting his paradise.

The house must, however, have had for him some asso-
ciations not wholly pleasant. He had acquired it originally
as a discreet retreat where he could enjoy the society of
Miss Morris, whom, for many years, he hoped to many
if he could ever get free from his first wife. Miss Morris,
however, was ousted from his affections by Molly, the lady
who became his second wife, for whose sake he suffered
imprisonment after being condemned by his Peers for
bigamy. For Molly’s sake he had been divorced from hir
first wife. He became divorced in Reno and immediately
thereupon married Molly, again at Reno. He returned to
England and found that British law considered his mar-
riage to Molly bigamous on the ground that Briti.rii law
acknowledges the validity' of Reno marriages, but not n;
Reno divorces. His second wife, who was very fat. used to
wear green corduroy knickerbockers: the view of her fro.m

216

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

behind when she was bending over a flower-bed at Tele- i
graph House used to make one wonder that he had
thought her worth what he had gone through for her sake.

Her day, like Miss Morris’s, came to an end, and he fell
in love with Elizabeth. Molly, from whom he wished to be
divorced, demanded £.400 a year for life as her price;
after his death, I had to pay this. She died at about the !
age of ninety. !

Ehzabeth, in her turn, left him and wrote an intolerably
cruel novel about him, called Vera. In this novel, Vera is
already dead; she had been his wife, and he is supposed
to be heartbroken at the loss of her. She died by falling
out of one of the windows of the tower of Telegraph
House. As the novel proceeds, the reader gradually gath-
ers that her death was not an accident, but suicide brought
on by my brother’s cruelty. It was this that caused me to
give my children an emphatic piece of advice: “Do not
marry a novelist,”

In this house of many memories we established the
school. In managing the school we experienced a number
of difficulties which we ought to have foreseen. There was,
first, the problem of finance. It became obvious that there
must be an enormous pecuniary loss. We could oiily have
prevented this by making the school large and the food
inadequate, and we could not make the school large ex-
cept by altering its character so as to appeal to conven-
tional parents. Fortunately I was at this time making a
great deal of money from books and from lecture tours in
America. I made four such tours altogether — during
1924 (already mentioned), 1927, 1929, and 1931. The
one in 1927 was during the first term of the school, so
that I had no part in its beginnings. During the second
term, Dora went on a lecture tour in America. Thus
throughout the first two terms there was never more than
one of us in charge. When I was not in America, I had to
write books to make the necessary money. Consequently,

I was never able to give my whole time to the school.

A second difficulty was that some of the staff, however

Second Marriage

217

often and however meticulously our principles were ex-
plained to them, could never be brought to act in accor-
dance with them unless one of us was present.

A third trouble, and that perhaps the most serious, was
that we got an undue proportion of problem children. We
ought to have been on the look-out for this pitfall, but at
first we were glad to take almost any child. The parents
who were most inclined to try new methods were those
who had difficulties with their children. As a rule, these
difficulties were the fault of the parents, and the iU effects
of their unwisdom were renewed in each hohday. What-
ever may have been the cause, many of the children were
cruel and destructive. To let the children go free was to
establish a reign of terror, in which the strong kept the
weak trembling and miserable. A school is hke the world:
only government can prevent brutal violence. And so I
found myself, when the children were not at lessons,
obliged to supervise them continually to stop cruelty. We
divided them into three groups, bigs, middles, and smalls.
One of the middles was perpetually ill-treating the smalls,
so I asked him why he did it. His answer was; “The bigs
hit me, so I hit the smaUs; that’s fair.” And he really
thought it was.

Sometimes really sinister impulses came to light. There
were among the pupils a brother and sister who had a
very sentimental mother, and had been taught by her to
profess a completely fantastic degree of affection for each
other. One day the teacher who was superintending the
midday meal found part of a hatpin in the soup that was
about to be ladled out. On inqxiiry, it turned out that tire
supposedly affectionate sister had put it in. “Didn’t you
know it might kill you if you swallowed it?” we said. “Oh
yes,” she replied, “but I don’t take soup.” Further inves-
tigation made it fairly evident that she had hoped her
brother would be the victim. On another occasion, when a
pair of rabbits had been given to a child that was unpop-
ular, two other children made an attempt to bum them to
death, and in the attempt, made a vast fire which black-

218

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

ened several acres, and, but for a change of wind, mioht
have burnt the house down. ’ c

For us personally, and for our tv-o children, there were
special worries. The other boys naturally thou^t that our
boy was unduly favoured, w’hereas we, in order not to
favour him or his sister, had to keep an unnatural dis-
tance between them and us except during the holidays.
They, in turn, suffered from a divided loyalty: they had
either to be sneaks or to practise deceit tow'ards their
parents. The complete happiness that had existed in our
relations to John and Kate was thus destroyed, and was
replaced by awkwardness and embarrassment. I think that
something of the sort is bound to happen whenever par-
ents and children are at the same school.

In retrospect, I feel that several things v/ere mistaken in
the , principles upon which the school was conducted.
Young children in a group caimot be happy without a
certain amount of order and routine. Left to amuse them-
selves, they are bored, and turn to bullying or destruction.
In their free time, there should always be an adult to
suggest some agreeable game or amusement, and to supply
an initiative which is hardly to be expected of young
children.

Another thing that was wrong was that there was a
pretence of more freedom than in fact existed. There w'as
very little freedom where health and cleanliness were con-
cerned. The children had to w'ash, to clean their teeth, and
to go to bed at the right time. True, w'e had never pro-
fessed that there should be freedom in such matters, but
foolish people, and especially journalists in search of a
sensation, had said or believed that we advocated a com-
plete absence of all restraints and compulsions. The older
children, when told to brush their teeth, w'ould sometimes
say sarcastically: “Call this a free school!” Those who had
heard their parents talking about the freedom to be ex-
pected in the school would test it by seeing how far they
could go in naughtiness without- being stopped. As we
only forbade things that were obviously harmful, such
experiments were apt to be very inconvenient.

Second Marriage

219

In 1929, I published Marriage and Morals, which I
dictated while recovering from whooping-cough. (Owing
to my age, my trouble was not diagnosed until I had
infected most of the children in the school.) It was this
book chiefly which, in 1940, supplied material for the
attack on me in New York. In it, I developed the view
that complete fidelity was not to be expected in most
marriages, but that a husband and wife ought to be able
to remain good friends in spite of affairs. I did not main-
tain, however, that a marriage could with advantage be
prolonged if the wife had a child or children of whom the
husband was not the father; m that case, I thought, divorce
was desirable. I do not know what I think now about the
subject of marriage. There seem to be insuperable objec-
tions to every general theory about it. Perhaps easy di-
vorce causes less unhappiness than any other system, but
I am no longer capable of being dogmatic on ih& subject
of marriage.

In the following year, 1930, 1 published The Conquest
of Happiness, a book consisting of common-sense advice
as to what an individual can do to overcome tempera-
mental causes of unhappiness, as opposed to what can be
done by changes in social and economic systems. This
book was differently estimated by readers of three differ-
ent levels. Unsophisticated readers, for whom it was in-
tended, liked it, with the result that it had a very large
sale. Highbrows, on the contrary, regarded it as a con-
temptible pot-boiler, an escapist book, bolstering up the
pretence that there were useful things to be done and said
outside politics. But at yet another level, that of profes-
sional psychiatrists, the book won very high praise. I do not
know which estimate was right; what I do know is that
the book was written at a time when I needed much self-
corhmand and much that I had learned by painful experi-
ence if I was to maintain any endurable level of happiness.

I was profoundly unhappy during the next few years
and some things which I wrote at the time give a more
exact picture of my mood than anything I can now write
in somewhat pale reminiscence.

220 The A iiiobiography of Bertrand Russell

At that time I used to write an article once a week for
the Hearst- Press. I spent Christmas Daj^ 1931, on the
Atlantic, returning from one of my American lecture
tours. So I chose for that week’s article the subject of
“Christmas at Sea.” This is the article I wrote:

CHRISTMAS AT SEA

For the second time in my Ufe, I am spending
Christmas Day on the Atlantic. The previous occa-
sion when I had this experience was thirty-five years
ago, and by contrasting what I feel now with what I
remember of my feelings then, I am learning much
about growing old.

Thirty-five years ago I was lately married, childless,
very happy, and beginning to taste the joys of success.
Family appeared to me as an external power hamper-
ing to freedom: the world, to me, was a world of indi-
vidual adventure. I wanted to think my own thoughts,
find my own friends, and choose my own abode, with-
out regard to tradition or elders or anything but my
own tastes. I felt strong enough to stand alone, with-
out the need of buttresses.

Now, I realize,' what I did not know then, that this
attitude was dependent upon a superabundant vitality.

I found Christmas at sea a pleasant amusement, and
.enjoyed the efforts of the ship’s officers to make the
occasion as festive as possible. The ship rolled prodi-
giously, and with each roll all the steamer trunks slid
from side to side of all the state-rooms with a noise
like thunder. The louder the noise became, the more it
made me laugh: everything was great fun.

Time, they say, makes a man mellow. I do not be-
lieve it. Time m^es a man afraid, and fear makes him
conciliatory, and being conciliatory he endeavours to
appear to others what they will think mellow. And
with fear comes the need of affection, of some human
warmth to keep away the chill of the cold universe.
When I speak of fear, I do not mean merely or mainly
personal fear: the fear of death or decrepitude or pen-
ury or any such merely mundane misfortune. I am
thinking of a more metaphysical fear. I am thinking of

Second Marriage

221

the fear that enters the soul through experience of the
major evils to which life is subject; the treachery of
friends, the death of those whom we love, the discov-
ery of the cruelty that lurhs in average human nature.

During the thirty-five years since my last Christmas
on the Atlantic, experience of these major evils has
changed the character of my unconscious attitude to
life. To stand alone may still be possible as a moral
effort, but is no longer pleasant as an adventure. I
want the companionship of my children, the warmth
of the family fire-side, the support of historic continu-
ity and of membership of a great nation. These are
very ordinary human joys, which most middle-aged
persons enjoy at Christmas. There is nothing about
them to distinguish the philosopher from other men;
on the contrary, their very ordinariness makes them
the more effective in mitigating the sense of sombre
solitude.

And so Christmas at sea, which was once a pleasant
adventure, has become painful. It seems to symbolize
the loneliness of the man who chooses to stand alone,
using his own judgment rather than the judgment of
the herd. A mood of melancholy is, in these circum-
stances, inevitable, and should not be shirked.

But there is something also to be said on the other
side. Domestic joys, like all the softer pleasures, may
sap the will and destroy courage. The indoor warmth
of the traditional Christmas is good, but so is the
South wind, and the sun rising out of the sea, and the
freedom of the watery horizon. The beauty of these
things is undiminished by human folly and wickedness,
and remains to give strength to the faltering idealism
of middle age.

December 25, 1931.

As is natural when one is trying to ignore a profound
cause of unhappiness, I found impersonal reasons for
gloom. I had been very full of personal misery in the early
years of the century, but at that time I bad a more or less
Platonic philosophy which enabled me to see beauty in
the extra-human universe. Mathematics and the stars con-

222

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

soled me when the human world seemed empty of com-
fort. But changes In my philosophy have robbed me of
such consolations. Solipsism oppressed me, particularly
after studying such interpretations of physics as that of
Eddington. It seemed that what we had thought of as laws
of nature were only linguistic conventions, and that phys-
ics was not reaUy concerned with an external world. I do
not mean that I quite believed this, but that it became a
haimting nightmare, increasingly invading my unagma-
tion. One foggy ni^t, sitting in my tower at Telegraph
House after everyone else was asleep, I expressed this
mood in a pessimistic meditation:

MODERN PHYSICS

Alone in my tower at midnight, I remember the woods
and downs, the sea and sky, that daylight showed.
Now, as I look through each of the four windows,
north, south, east and west, I see only myself dimly re-
flected, or shadowed in monstrous opacity upon the
fog. What matter? To-morrow’s sunrise will give me
back the beauty of the outer world as I wake from
sleep.

But the mental night that has descended upon me is
less brief, and promises no awakening after sleep. For-
merly, the cruelty, the meanness, the dusty fretful pas-
sion of human life seemed to me a little thing, set,
like some resolved discord in music, amid the spleii-
dour of the stars and the stately procession of geologi-
cal ages. What if the universe was to end in universal
. death? It was none the less unrufiled and magnificent.
But now all this has shrunk to be no more than my
own reflection in the windows of ' the soul through
which I look out upon the night of nothingness. The
revolutions of nebulae, the birth and death of stars,
are no more than convenient fictions in the trivial
work of linking together my own sensations, and per-
haps those of other men not much better than myself.
No dungeon was ever constructed so dark and narrow
as that in which the shadow physics of our time im-
prisons us, for every prisoner has believed that outside

Second Marriage

223

his walls a free world existed; but now the prison has
become the whole universe. There is darkness with-
out, and when I die there will be darkness within.
There is no splendour, no vastness, anywhere; only
triviality for a moment, and then nothing.

Why live in such a world? Why even die?

In May and June 1931, 1 dictated to my then secretary,
Peg Adams, who had formerly been secretary to a Raj^
and Ranee, a short autobiography, which has formed the
basis of the present book down to 1921. I ended it with
an epilogue, in which, as will be seen, I did not admit
private unhappiness, but only political and metaphysical
disillusionment. I insert it here, not because it expressed
what I now feel, but because it shows the great difficulty
I experienced in adjusting myself to a changing world and
a very sober philosophy.

EPILOGUE

My personal life since I returned from China has been
happy and peaceful, I have derived from my children
at least as much instinctive satisfaction as I antici-
pated, and have in the main regulated my life with
reference to them. But while my personal life has
been satisfying, my impersonal outlook has become
increasingly sombre, and I have found it more and
more difficult to believe that the hopes which I for-
merly cherished will be realized in any measurable
future. I have endeavoured, by concerning myself with
the education of my children and with making money
for their benefit, to shut out from my thoughts the im-
personal despairs which tend to settle upon me. Ever
since puberty I have believed in the value of two
things: kindness and clear thinking. At first these two
remained more or less distinct; when I felt triumphant
I believed most in clear thinking, and in the opposite
mood I believed most in kindness. Gradually, the two
have come more and more together in my feelings. I
find that much unclear thought exists as an excuse for
cruelty, and that much cruelty is prompted by super-

224

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

stitious beliefs. The War made me vividly aware of the
cruelty in human nature, but I hoped for a reaction
when the War was over. Russia made me feel that
little was to be hoped from revolt against existing gov-
ernments in the way of an increase of kindness in the
world, except possibly in regard to children. The cra-
elty to children involved in conventional methods of
education is appalling, and I have been amazed at the
horror which is felt against those who propose a
kinder system.

As a patriot I am depressed by the downfall of En-
gland, as yet only partial, but likely to be far more
complete before long. The history of England for the
last four hundred years is in my blood, and I should
have wished to hand on to my son the tradition of
public spirit which has in the past been valuable. In
the world that I foresee there will be no place for this
tradition, and he will be lucky if he escapes with his
life. The feeling of impending doom gives a kind of
futility to all activities whose field is in England.

In the world at large, if civilization survives, I fore-
see the domination of either America or Russia, and
in either case of a system where a tight organization
subjects the individual to the State so completely that
splendid individuals will be no longer possible.

And what of philosophy? The best years of my life
were given to the Principles of Mathematics, in the
hope of finding somewhere some certain knowledge.
The whole of this effort, in spite of three big volumes,
ended inwardly in doubt and bevydlderment. As re-
gards metaphysics, when, xmder the influence of
Moore, I first threw off the belief in German ideal-
ism, I experienced the delight of believing that Ae
sensible world is real. Bit by bit, chiefly under the in-
fluence of physics, this delight has faded, and I have
been driven to a position not unlike that of Berkeley,
without his God and his Anglican complacency.

When I survey my life, it seems to me to be a use-
less one, devoted to impossible ideals. I have not
found in the post-war world any attainable ideals to
replace those which I have come to think unattainable.

Second Marriage

225

So far as the things I have cared for are concerned,
the world seems to me to be entering upon a period of
darkness. When Rome fell, St. Augustine, a Bolshevik
of the period, could console himself with a new hope,
but my outlook upon my own time is less like his than
like that of the unfortunate Pagan philosophers of the
time of Justinian, whom Gibbon describes as seeking
asylum in Persia, but so disgusted by what they saw
there that they returned to Athens, in spite of the
Christian bigotry which forbade them to teach. Even
they were more fortunate than I am in one respect,
for they had an intellectual faith which remained firm.
They entertained no doubt as to the greatness of Plato.
For my part, I find in the most modem thought a cor-
rosive solvent of the great systems of even the recent
past, and I do not believe that the constructive efforts
of present-day philosophers and men of science have
an3ffhing approaching the validity that attaches to their
destructive criticism.

My activities continue from force of habit, and in
the company of others I forget the despair wWch un-
derlies my daily pursuits and pleasures. But when I am
alone and idle, I caimot conceal for myself that my
life had no purpose, and that I know of no new pur-
pose to which to devote my remaining years. I find
myself involved in a vast mist of solitude both emo-
tional and metaphysical, from which I can find no
issue.

[June 11, 1931.]

LETTERS

Oswalds

, Bishopsboume, Kent

Oct. 23rd. 1922

My Dear Russell:

When your book* arrived we were away for a few days.
Perhaps les convenances demanded that I should have

* The Problem oj China.

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

226

acknowledged the receipt at once. But I preferred to read
it before I wrote. Unluckily a very rmpleasant affair was
sprung on me and absorbed aU my thinking energies for a
fortnight. I simply did not attempt to open the book till
all. the worry and flurry w'as o%^er, and I could give it two
clear days.

I have always liked the Chinese, even those that tried
to kill me (and some other people) in the yard of a pri-
vate house in Chantabun, even (but not so much) the
fellow who stole all my money one night in Bankok, but
brushed and folded my clothes neatly for me to dress in
the morning, before vanishing into the depths of Siam. I
also received many kindnesses at the hands of various
Chinese. This with the addition of an evening’s conversa-
tion with the secretary of His Excellency Tseng on the
verandah of an hotel and a perfunctory study of a poem,
The Heathen Chinee, is all I know about Chinese. But
after reading your extremely interesting view of the Chi-
nese Problem I take a gloomy view of the future of their
country.

He who does not see the truth of your deductions cm
only be he who does not want to see. They strike a chill
into one’s soul especially when you deal with the Ameri-
can element. That would indeed be a dreadful fate for
China or any other coimtry. I feel your book the more
because the only ray of hope you allow is the advent of
international socialism, the sort of thing to which I cannot
attach any sort of definite meaning. I have never been
able to find in any man’s book or any man’s talk anything
convinong enough to stand up for a moment against my
deep-seated sense of fatality governing this man-inhabited
world. After aU it is but a system, not ve^ recondite and
not very plausible. As a mere reverie it is not of a very
high order and wears a strange resemblance to a hungr}'
man’s dream of a gorgeous feast guarded by a lot of
beadles in cocked hats. But I know you wouldn’t exjpect
me to put faith in any system. The only remedy for China-
men and for the rest of us is the change of hearts, but

Second Marriage

227

looking at the history of the last 2000 years there is not
much reason to expect that thing, even if man has taken
to flying — a great “uplift,” no doubt, but no great change.
He doesn’t fly like an eagle; he flies like a beetle. And you
must have noticed hovi^ ugly, ridiculous and fatuous is the
flight of a beetle.

Your chapter on Chinese character is the sort of mar-
vellous achievement that one would expect from you. It
may not be complete. That I don’t know. But as it stands,
in its light touch and profound insight, it seems to me flaw-
less. I have no difliculty in accepting it, because I do
believe in amenity allied to barbarism, in compassion co-
existing with complete brutality, and in essential rectitude
underlying the most obvious corruption. And on this last
point I would offer for your reflection that we ought not
to attach too much importance to that trait of character
— just because it is not a trait of character! At any rate
no more than in other races of mankind. Chinese corrup-
tion is, I suspect, institutional; a mere method of paying
salaries. Of course it was very dangerous. And in that
respect the Imperial Edicts recommending honesty failed
to affect the agents of the Government. But Chinese,
essentially, are creatures of Edicts and in every other
sphere their characteristic is, I should say, scrupulous
honesty.

There is another suggestion of yours which terrifies me,
and arouses my compassion for the Chinese, even more
than the prospect of an Americanised China. It is your
idea of some sort of selected council, the strongly disci-
plined society arriving at decisions etc. etc. (p. 244). If a
constitution proclaimed in the light of day, with at least a
chance of being understood by the people, is not to be
relied on, then what trust could one put in a self-appointed
and probably secret association (which from the nature of
things must be above the law) to commend or condemn
individuals or institutions? As it is unthinkable that you
should be a slave to formulas or a victim of self-delusion,
it is with the greatest diffidence that I raise my protest

228 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

against your contrivance which must par la force des
chases and by the very manner of its inception become but
an association of mere swelled-heads of the most danger-
ous kind. There is not enough honour, virtue and selfless-
ness in the world to make any such council other than the
greatest danger to every kind of moral, mental and politi-
cal independence. It would become a centre of delation,
intrigue and jealousy of the most debased kind. No free-
dom of thought, no peace of heart, no genius, no virtue,
no individuality trying to raise its head above the subser-
vient mass, would be safe before the domination of such a
council, and the xmavoidable demoralization of the instru-
ments of its power. For, I must suppose that you mean it
to have power and to have agents to exercise that power
— or else it would become as little substantial as if com-
posed of angels of whom ten thousand can sit on the point
of a needle. But I wouldn’t trust a society of that kind
even if composed of angels. . . . More! I would not, my
dear friend, (to address you in Salvation Army style)
trust that society if Bertrand Russell himself were, after
40 days of meditation and fasting, to undertake the selec-
tion of the members. After saying this I may just as well
resume my wonted cahn; for, indeed, I could not think of
any stronger way of expressing my utter dislike and mis-
trust of such an expedient for working out the salvation of
China.

I see in this morning’s Times (this letter was begun
yesterday) a leader on your Problem of China which I
hope wUl comfort and sustain you in the face of my
savage attack. I meant it to be deadly; but I perceive that
on account of my age and infirmities there was never
any need for you to fly the country or ask for police pro-
tection. You wfll no doubt be glad to hear that my body
is disabled by a racking cough and my enterprising spirit
irretrievably tamed by an xmaccountable depression. Thus
are the impious stricken, and things of the order that
“passeth understanding” brought home to one! . . . But I
wfll not treat you to a meditation on my depression. That
way madness lies.

i

Second Marriage

229

Your — truly Christian in its mansuetude — note has
just reached me. I admire your capacity for forgiving
sinners, and I am warmed by the glow of your friendli-
ness. But I protest against your credulity in the matter of
newspaper pars. I did not know I was to stay in town to
attend rehearsals. Which is the rag that decreed it I won-
der? The fact is I came up for just 4 hours and 20 min.
last Wednesday; and that I may have to pay another visit
to the theatre (the whole thing is like an absurd dream)
one day this week. You can not doubt mon Compere that
/ do want to see the child whose advent has brought about
this intimate relation between us. But I shrink from stay-
ing the night in town. In fact I am afraid of it. This is no
joke. Neither is it a fact that I would shout on housetops.
I am confiding it to you as a sad truth. However — this
cannot last; and before long I’ll make a special trip to see
you all on an agreed day. Meantime my love to him —
special and exclusive. Please give my duty to your wife as
politeness dictates and — as my true feelings demand —
remember me most affectionately to ma tres honoree
Commere. And pray go on cultivating forgiveness towards
this insignificant and unworthy person who dares to sub-
scribe himself

Always yours,

Joseph Conrad

Chelsea, S.W.
14.11.22

Dear Sir:

Herewith I return some of the literature you have sent
for my perusal.

One of the papers says “Why do thinking people vote
Labor.”

Thinking people don’t vote Labor at all, it is only those
who cannot see beyond their nose who vote Labor.

According to your Photo it does not look as tliough it is
very long since you left your cradle so I think j'ou would
be wise to no home and suck vour tittv. Tlie Electors of

230

The Autobiography oj Bertrand Russell

Chelsea want a man of experience to represent them. Take
my advice and leave Pohtics to men of riper years. If you
cannot remember the Franco Prussian’ War of 1870 or the
Russo Turkish War of 1876/7 then you are not old
enough to be a Pohtician.

I can remember both those Wars and also the War of -
— /66 when the Battle of Sadowa was fought.

England had men of experience to represent them then.

I am afraid we shall never get anyone like Lord Derby
(The Rupert of Debate) and Dizzy to lead us again.

Yours obedy,

Wm. F. Philpott

Parliamentary General Election, 15th November,. 1922.
To the Electors of Chelsea
Dear Sir or Madam:

At. the invitation of the Executive Committee of the
Chelsea Labour Party, I come before you as Labour can-
didate at the forthcoming General Election. I have been
for many years a member of the Independent Labour
Party, and I am in complete agreement with the pro-
gramme of the Labour Party as published on October 26.

The Government which has been in power ever since
the Armistice has done nothing during the past four years
to restore normal life to Europe. Our trade suffers be-
cause our customers are ruined. This is the chief cause of
the unemployment and destitution, unparalleled in our
previous history, from which our country has suffered dur-
ing the past two years. If we are to regain any measure^ of
prosperity, the first necessity is a wise and firm foreign
policy, leading to the reviyal of Eastern and Central Eu-
rope, and avoiding such ignorant and ill-considered ad-
ventures as nearly plunged us into war with the Turks.
The Labour Party is the only one whose foreign policy is
sane and reasonable, the only one which is likely to save
Britain from even worse disasters than those already suf-
fered. The new Government, according to the statement

Second Marriage

231

of its own supporters, does not differ from the old one on
any point of policy. ITie country had become aware of tlie
incompetence of the Coalition Government, and the major
part of its supporters hope to avert the wrath of the elec-
tors by pretending to be quite a different firm. It is an old
device — a little too old to be practised with success at
this time of day. Those who see the need of new policies
must support new men, not the same men under a new
label.

There is need of drastic economy, but not at the ex-
pense of the least fortunate members of the community,
and above aU not at the expense of education and the care
of children, upon which depends the nation’s future. What
has been thrown away in Irak and Chanak and such places
has been wasted utterly, and it is in these directions that
we must look for a reduction in our expenditure.

I am a strong supporter of the capital levy, and of the
nationalization of mines and railways, with a great mea-
sure of control by the workers in those industries. I hope
to see similar measures adopted, in the course of time, in
other industries.

The housing problem is one which must be dealt with
at the earliest possible moment. Something would be done
to alleviate the situation by the taxation of land values,
which would hinder the holding up of vacant land while
the owner waits for a good price. Much could be done if
public bodies were to eliminate capitalists’ profits by em-
ploying the Building Guild. By these methods, or by what-
ever methods prove available, houses must be provided to
meet the imperative need.

The main cure for unemployment must be the improve-
ment of our trade by the restoration of normal conditions
on the Continent. In the meantime, it is unjust that those
who are out of work through no fault of their own should
suffer destitution; for the present, therefore, I am in fa-
I'our of the continuation of unemployed benefit.

I am in favour of the removal of all inequalities in the
law as between men and women. In particular, I hold that

232

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

every adult citizen, male or female, ought to be entitled
to a vote.

As a result of mismanagement since the armistice, our
country' and the world are faced v/ith terrible dangers. The
Labour Party has a clear and sane policy for dealing vdth
these dangers. I am strongly opposed to all suggestions of
violent revolution, and I am persuaded that only by consti-
tutional methods can a better state of affairs be brought
about. But I see no hope of improvement from parties
which advocate a continuation of the muddled ■'lindictive-
ness which has brought Europe to the brink of ruin. For
the world at large, for our own country, and for ever}'
man, w'oman and child in our country, the sictory oi
Labour is essential. On these grounds I appeal for your
votes.

Bertrand Russell

10 Adelphi Terrace, W.C.2
[1922]

Dear Russell:

1 should say yes with pleasure if the matter were in
my hands: but, as y'ou may ima^e, I have so many calls
that I must leave it to the Labor Party, acting through the
Fabian Society as far as I am concerned, to settle where
I shall go. You had better therefore send in a request at
once to the Fabian Society', 25 TothiU Street, Westmin-
ster, S.W.l. for a speech from me.

I must warn you, however, that though, when I speak,
the hall is generally full, and the meeting is apparently
very succ^sful, the people who run after and applaud me
are just as likely to vote for the enemy, or not vote at all,
on polling day'. I addressed 13 gorgeous meetings at the
last election; but not one of my candidates got m.

Faithfully,

G. Bernard Shaw

P.S. As you will see, this is a circular letter, which I send
only because it e.xplains the situation, hlothing is settied
yet except that I am positively' engaged on the 2nd, 3rd
and 10th.

Second Marriage

233

I suppose it is too late to urge you not to waste any of
your own money on Chelsea, where no Progressive has a
dog’s chance. In Dilke’s day it was Radical; but Lord
Cadogan rebuilt it fashionably and drove aU the Radicals
across the bridges to Battersea. It is exasperating that a
reasonably winnable seat has not been found for you. I
would not spend a farthing on it myself, even if I could
finance the 400 or so Labor candidates who would like to
touch me for at least a fiver apiece.

From and to Jean Nicod France

15 June [1919]

Dear Mr. Russell:

We shall come with joy. We are both so happy to see
you. How nice of you to ask us!

I have not written to you aU this time because I was
doing nothing good, and was in consequence a little
ashamed.

Your Justice in War Time is slowly appearing in La
Forge, and is intended to be published in book-form after-
wards. I ought to have done better, I think.

And 1 have done no work, only studied some physics.
I have been thinking a tremendous time on the External
World, with no really clear results. Also, I have been
yearning in vain to help it d faire peau neuve.

So you will see us coming at the beginning of Septem-
ber at Lulworth. We feel quite elated at the thought of
being some time with you.

Yours very sincerely,
Jean Nicod

53 rue Gazan
Paris XlVe
28th September 1919

Dear Mr. Russell:

I could not see Remain Rolland, who is not in Paris
now. I shall write to him and send him your letter with
mine.

234 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

We are not going to Rumania. I am going to Cahors
tomorrow, and Therese is staying here. There is now a
prospect of our going to Brazil in eighteen months. Of
course I am ceasing to, believe in any of these things; hut
we are learning a great deal of geography.

I have definitely arranged to write a thesis on the exter-
nal world. Part of it v.iU be ready at Christmas, as I am
being assured that I shall find very little work at Cahors.

We hope to hear that you are back in Cambridge now.

You hmow how glad we both are to have seen you
. again.

Yours,

Jean Nicod

1, rue Pot Trinquat, Cahors
20 April [1920]

Dear Mr. Russell:

Here is the geometry of the fish, as you said 3 ^ou liked it.
It will appear in the Revue de Meiaphysique, but I cannot
refrain from sending it to you now as a prolongation of
our talk. I hope you wall look through it, but please do not
feel bound "to write to me about it I Imow you are very
busy.

It was so nice of you to stop. When I heard that 5 'ou
w'ere to come, it seemed like the realisation of a dream.
This day with you has been a great joy to me.

Yours very sincerely,
Jean

I do not want the MS. back.

Campagne Saunex
Pregny, Geneve
22 Sept 1921

^ear Mr. Russell:

Do you Imow that your death was announced in a Jap-
anese paper? I sent a telegram to the University of Peking,
who ansv/ered “Recovered” — but we were terribly anx-
ious. We hope you are quite well again nov/.

Second Marriage

235

I shall leave this ofiBce in February or March, with
some money, and do nothing tUl next October at the very
least. I do hope that I shall see you.

Yours affectionately,
Jean Nicod

70, Overstrand Mansions
Prince of Wales Road
Battersea, S.W. 11
2.10.21

Dear Nicod:

I have sent your query to Whitehead, as I have forgot-
ten his theory and never knew it very thoroughly. I will
let you know his answer as soon as I get it. I am ^ad your
book is so nearly done. Please let me see it when it is.
— I know about the announcement of my death — it was
a fearful nuisance. It was in the English and American
papers too. I am practically well now but I came as near
dying as one can without going over the edge — Pneu-
monia it was. I was delirious for three weeks, and I have
no recollection of the time whatever, except a few dreams
of negroes singing in deserts, and of learned bodies that
I thought I had to address. The Doctor said to me after-
wards: “When you were ill you behaved like a true philos-
opher; every time that you came to yourself you made a
joke.” I never had a compliment that pleased me more.

Dora and I are now married, but just as happy as we
were before. We both send our love to you both. It will
be delightful to see you when you leave Geneva. We shall
be in London.

Yours off.,

Bertrand Russell

31 Sydney Street
London, S.W. 3
13.9.23

Dear Nicod: , , .

I have been meaning to write to you for e
months, but have somehow never done so.

236 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

ever answer your letter? He is now so busy with politics
and money-making that I doubt if he ever thinks about
probability. He has become enormously rich, and has
acquired The Nation. He is Liberal, not Labour.

Principia Mathematica is being reprinted, and I am
writing a new introduction, abolishing axiom of reducibil-
ity, and assuming that functions of props are always
truth-fimctions, and functions of functions only occur
through values of the functions and are always extensional.
I don’t know if these assumptions are true, but it seems
worth while to work out their consequences.

What do you think of the enclosed proposal? I have
undertaken to try to get articles. I asked if they would
admit Frenchmen, and they say yes, if they write in Ger-
man or English. Will you send me an article for them? I
want to help them as much as I can. Do.

AH goes well with us. Dora expects another child about
Xmas time, and unfortunately I have to go to America to
lecture for three months at the New Year.

The world gets more and more dreadful. What a mis-
fortune not to "have lived fifty years sooner. And now God
has taken a hand at Tokyo. As yet, he beats human war-
mongers, but they will equal him before long.

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

From Moritz Schlick*

Philosophisches
Institut der Universitat
in Wien

Vienna, Sep. 9th 1923

Dear Mr. Russell:

Thank you most heartily for your kind letter. I was
overjoyed to receive your affirmative answer. I feel con-
vinced that the future of the magazine is safe since you

* Founder of the Vienna Circle.

Second Marriage

237

have consented to lend your help by being one of the
editors. It is a pity, of course, that you cannot send an
article of your own immediately and that you have not
much hope of getting contributions from your English and
American friends during the next months, but we must be
patient and shall be glad to wait till you have more time.
I am sure that the scheme wUl work very well later on. It
already means a great deal to know that we have your
support, that your name will in some way be identified
with the spirit of the magazine.

Thank you for your further suggestions. In my opinion
contributions by M. Nicod would be most welcome, and
I have no doubt that none of the editors would object to
French articles, but unfortunately the publisher (who of
course takes the business standpoint) has declared that at
present he cannot possibly print anything in French, but
I hope he wUl have nothing against publishing articles by
French authors in the German or English language.

I have written to Reichenbach about your suggestion
concerning the Polish logicians at Warsaw; I do not think
there will be any political difficulties in approaching them.
I believe we must be careful not to have too many articles
dealing with mathematical logic or written in symbolic
form in the first issues, as they might frighten away many
readers, they must get used to the new forms gradually.

I have asked Reichenbach to send j'ou some offprints
of his chief papers; I hope you have received them by the
time these lines reach you.

I should like to ask you some philosophical questions,
but I am extremely busy just now. Our “Internationale
Hochschulkurse” are beginning this week, with lecturers
and students from many countries. It would be splendid
if you would be willing to come to Vienna on a similar
occasion next year.

Thanking you again I remain

yours very sincerely,

M. SCHLICK

23 8 The A iitobiogrqphy of Bertrand Russell

Chemin des Coudriers
Petit Saconnex, Geneve
17 September, 1923

Dear Mr. Russell:

I should like very much to dedicate my hook La Geo-
metrie dans le Monde sensible to you. It is not very good;
but I stiU hope that bits of it may be worth something.
Will you accept it, such as it is? I have thought of the
following inscription:

A mon maitre

UHonorable. Bertrand Russell
Membre de la Societe Royale d’Angleterre
en temoignage de reconnaissante ejection

Can I let it go like that? The book is the chief one of
my theses. The other one is Le Probleme logique de
I'Induction, which is a criticism of Keynes. I think I prove
there that two instances differing only numerically (or in
respects assumed to be immaterial) do count for more
than one only; also, that Keynes’ Limitation of Variety
does not do what he thinks it does. Both books wili be
printed in three weeks or so (although they cannot be
published tUi after their discussion en Sorborme some time
next winter) .

Fve sent my ms. to Ke3mes, offering to print his answer
along vrith it. But he says he is too absorbed by other
things; and altogether, I fear that he does not take me
seriously — which is sad, because I am sure my objec-
tions well deserve to be considered.

Physically, I am settling down to a state which is not
;alth, but which allows some measure of life, and may
iprove with time.

Second Marriage

239

We hope you three are flourishing, and send you our
love.

Jean Nicod

Chemin des Coudriers
Petit Saconnex, Geneve
19 Sept. 1923

Dear Mr. Russell:

I got your letter the very morning I had posted mine
to you.

I should love to write an article for this new review. But
I have just sent one to the Revue de Metaphysique (on
relations of values [i.e. truth values] and relations of
meanings in Logc) and have nothing even half ready. I
have been thinking of a sequel to my book, dealing with a
universe of perspectives where objects are in motion (uni-
form) and Restricted Relativity applies, everything being
as simple as possible. I would set forth what the observer
(more like an angel than a man) would observe, and the
order of his sensible world. What attracts me to that sort
of thing is its quality of freshness of vision — to take
stock of a world as of something entirely new. But it may
well be rather childish, and I don’t propose to go on
with it until you have seen the book itself and tell me it is
worth while.

Since you are re-publishing Prmcipia, I may remind
you that I have proved both Permutation and Association
by help of the other three primitive props (Tautology,
Addition, and the syllogistic prop.), where I only changed
the order of some letters. It is in a Memoir I wrote for the
B.A.- degree. I have entirely forgotten how it is done,
but I daresay I could find it again for you, if you wished
to reduce your 5 prim, props to those three (observe there
is one with one letter, one with two letters, and one with
three letters) .

Keynes did answer the letter I sent you. His answer
convinced me I was right on both points; so I went on

240

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

with my small book. It is a pity he will not do anything
more for the theory of Induction.

Your son does look pleased with the stones he holds.
His appearance is splendid.

We send our love.

Yours ever,
Jean Nicod

le 18 fa>rier [1924]

Dear Mr. Russell:

Jean has died on Saturday last after a short illness.

Je veux vous I’ecrire pendant qu’il repose encore pres de
moi dans cette maison ou il a font travaille, font espere
guerir — et ou nous avons ete si lieureux.

Vous savez combien il vous aimait — quelle luiniere
vous avez ete pour lid — vous savez aussi I’etre delicieia
et noble qidil etait. C’est absolument dechirant.

Je voudrais avoir des nouvelles de Dora.
Affectueusement d. vous deux.

Therese Nicod

Geneve 22 Jufflet 1924

Dear Mr. Russell:

Please pardon me for not having thanked you sooner fc
the Preface (or introduction, we shall call it what yo
think best). I do not teU you how grateful I am to yo
because I know you did it for Jean.

I shall translate it as soon as I get some free time. W
are absolutely loaded with things to do.

Of course your preface is everything and more that w
could want it to be. I mean to say that it is very beautifi
— How could I suggest a single alteration to it.

I remember that last winter I wrote to Jean that he wa
he most beautiful type of humanity I knew. (I do nc
■ecoUect what about — We had outbreaks tike that froi

Second Marriage

241

time to time) and lie answered immediately; “Moi le plus
beau type d’humanity que je connais c’est Russell”

Thank you again most deeply.

Yours very sincerely,
Therese Nicod

12 Chemin Thury

Geneve

le 19 octobre 1960

Cher Lord Russell:

Permettez~moi de m'adresser a voits d trovers toutes ces
annees. J’ai toiijours eu I’intention de jaire une reedition
des theses de Jean Nicod et je sals qu’aiijourd’hid encore,
sa pensee n’est pas oubliee. J’ai eu I’occasion de rencontrer
dernierement M. Jean Hyppolite, Directeiir de I’Ecole
normale supSrieure qui m’a vivement conseillee de reediter
en premier Le probleme logique de I’induction doni il ax’ait
garde un souvenir tout d fait precis et qu’il recommande
dux jeunes philosophes.

Parmi ceux qui m’ont donne le meme conseil je citerai le
Professeur Gonseth de Zurich, M. Gaston Bachelard, Jean
Lacroix, etc. J’ai meme trouve, I’autre jour, par hasard,
dans un manuel paru en 1959 un passage intitule: "Axiorne
de Nicod.”

L’ouvrage reedite paraitrait d Paris, aux Presses univer-
sitaires de France, qui en assureront la diffusion.

Je viens vous demander, si vous jugez cette reedition
opportune, de bien vouloir accepter d’ecrire quelques lignes
qui s’ajouteraient d la premiere preface de M. Lalande.
Qui mieux que vous pourrait donner d ce tardif hommage
le poids et V envoi?

Veuillez, cher Lord Russell, recevoir 1' assurance de rna
profonde admiration et de mes sentiments respectueux.

Therese Nicod

Je vous icris d une adresse que j’ai trouvee par hasard
dans un magazine et dont je suis si pen sure que je me per-
mets de recommander le pli.

242

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Plas Penrhyn
1 November, 1960

Dear Therese Nicod:

Thank you for your letter of October 19. I was very
glad to have news of you. I entirely agree with you that it
is very desirable to bring out a new edition of Nicod’s
work on induction which I think is very important and
which has not received adequate recognition. I am quite
wilhng to make a short addition to the preface by Mon-
sieur Lalande. I suppose that you are in communication
with Sir Roy Harrod (Christ Church, Oxford) who has
been for some time concerned in obtaining a better En-
glish translation of Nicod’s work than the one made long
ago.

I was very sorry to hear of the death of your son.

If ever you are in England it would be a very great
pleasmre to see you.

Yours very sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

Hotel Metropole
Minehead, Somerset
11 April 1923

My dear Russell:*

The other day I read your laudably unapologetic Apo-
logia from cover to cover with unflagging interest. I gather
from your Au Revoir that it is to be continued in your
next.

I was brought up — or left to bring myself up — on
your father’s plan all through. I can imagine nothing more
damnable than the position of a boy started that way, and
then, when he had acquired an adult freethinking habit of
mind and character, being thrust back into the P.L. sort
of tutelage. You say you have a bad temper; but the fact

* This letter was addressed to my brother and is about his A/y Life
md Adventures, published 1923.

Second Marriage

243

that you neither burnt the lodge nor murdered Uncle
•' RoUo is your eternal testimonial to the contrary.

No doubt Winchester saved RoUo and his shrine. Your
description of the school is the only really descriptive
description of one of the great boy farms I have ever read.

! ever,

'■ G. Bernard Shaw

' Extract from Unity, Chicago 19 Jun. 1924

Bertrand Russell has returned to England, and one of
the most impressive tours ever made in this country by a
distinguished foreigner has thus come to an end. Eveiy-
where Professor Russell spoke, he was greeted by great
audiences with rapturous enthusiasm, and listened to with
a touching interest and reverence. At most of his meetings,
admission was charged, frequently at regular theatre rates,
but this seemed to make no difference in the attendance.
Throngs of eager men and women crowded the audito-
riums where he appeared, and vied with one another in
paying homage to the distinguished man whom they so
honored. From this point of view, Bertrand Russell’s visit
was a triumph. From another and quite different point of
view, it was a failure and disgrace! What was the great
public at large allowed to know about this famous English-
man and the message which he brought across the seas to
us Americans? Nothing! The sUence of our newspapers
was weUnigh complete. Only when Mr. Russell got into a
controversy with President Lowell, of Harvard, which
gave opportunity to make the eagle scream, did his name
or words appear in any conspicuous fashion in our public
prints. The same journals which publish columns of stuff
about millionaires, actors, singers, prizefighters and sol-
diers from abroad, and blazen forth their most casual
comments about anything from women to the weather,
reported almost nothing about this one of the most emi-
nent Europeans of the day. But this is not the worst. Turn
from the newspapers to the colleges and universities! Here

244

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

is Mr. Resell, the ablest and most famous mathematic^
philosopher of modem times — for long an honored Fel-
low of Cambridge, En^and — author of learned essays
and treatises which are the standard authorities in their
field — at the least, a great scholar, at the most, one of the
greatest of scholars! But how many colleges in America
officially invited him to their halls? How many gave him
degrees of honor? So far as we know, Smith College was
the only institution which officially received him as a lec-
turer, though we understand that he appeared also at the
Harvard Union. Practically speaking, Professor Russell
was ignored. A better measure of the ignorance, cowardice
and Pharisaism of American academic fife we have never
seen!

From T. S, Eliot

9, Qarence Gate Gardens

N.W.l

15.X.23

Dear Bertie:

I was delighted to get your letter. It ^ves me very great
pleasure to know that you like the Waste Land, and espe-
cially Part V which in my opinion is not only the b^t part,
but the only part that justifies the whole, at all. It means a
great deal to me that you like it.

I must teh you that 18 months ago, before it was pub-
lished anywhere, Vivien wanted me to send you the MS.
to read, because she was sure that you were one of the
very few persons who might possibly see anything in it.
But we felt that you might prefer to have nothing to do
with us: It is absurd to say that we wished to drop you.

Vivien has had a frightful illness, and nearly died, in
the spring — as Ottoline has probably told you. And that
she has been in the country ever since. She has not yet
come back.

Dinner is rather difficult for ine at present. But might
I come to tea with you on Saturday? I should like to see

Second Marriage

245

you very mucli — there have been many times whea I
have thought that.

Yours ever,
T.S.E.

9, Clarence Gate Gardens
N.W.l

21 April. [1925]

Dear Bertie:

If you are still in London I should very much like to
see you.

My times and places are very restricted, but it is unnec-
essary to mention them unless I hear from you.

I want words from you which only you can give. But
if you have now ceased to care at all about either of us,
just write on a slip “I do not care to see you” or “I do
not care to see either of you” — and I will understand.

In case of that, I wUl tell you now that everything has
turned out as you predicted 10 years ago. You are a great
psychologist.

Yours,

T.S.E.

The Criterion
17, Thavies Inn
London, E.C.l
7 May [1925]

My dear Bertie:

Thank you very much indeed for your letter. As you
say, it is very diE&cult for you to make suggestions until I
can see you. For instance, I don’t know to what extent the
changes which have taken place, since we were in touch
with you, would seem to you material. What you suggest
seems to me of course what should have been done years
ago. Since then her* health is a thousand times worse.

* This refers to his first wife.

246

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Her only alternative wonld be to live quite ^one -r- if see
could. And tbe fact that living vrith me has done her so
much damage does. not help me to come to any dedsion.
I need the help of someone vrho understands her — I find
her stUl perpetually baffling and deceptive. She seems to
me like a child of 6 vrith an immensely clever and pre-
cocious -min d. She writes extremely well (stories, etc.)
and great originality. And I can never escape from the
speU of her persuasive (even coercive) gift of argumenL
Well, thank you very much, Bertie — I feel quite des-
perate. I hope to see you in the Autumn.

Yoiirs ever, -
T.SJB.

From my brother Frank

50 Qeveland Square
London, W.2
8 June, 1925

Dear Bertie: _ -u -i,

I lunched with the Aunt Agatha on Friday, and she has
even more tedious reserves for you. She began by being
very sighful and P.L.y about Alys, and said how she s
loved you and how determined you had been to
her. She infuriated me so that I reminded her at last that
at the time the P.L. view, which she had fully shared, was
that you were an innocent young man pursued by a desir-
ing woman, and that the one wew was not any toer ^
the other. Then she went on to Birth Control, with a sniC
at Dora, and aggravated me to such an extent that I was
bound to teU her that I did not think old women ot
seventy-three were entitled to legislate for young
twenty-five. Thereupon she assured me that she b^
twenty-five herself once, but I unfortunately lacke
^ourage to say Never! You can gather how provor^S ^
fcust have been from the fact that I was driven to rep y
Rvhich I don’t generally do. She then went on ^

make mischief about you and Elizabeth, by telling ni>^

Second Marriage

247

how much you w'ere in love with Elizabeth and how regu-
larly you saw her."' She really is a villainous old cat.

In order to take the taste of her out of my mouth when
I got home I read, or at any rate looked throng, three
books I had not seen before: Daedalus, Icarus and Hypa-
tia. Haldane’s “Test Tube Mothers” gave me the shivers:
I prefer the way of the music-hall song! I liked what I read
of Dora’s book, and intend to read it more carefully.

Will you teU Dora that I am not the least anxious to go
to the Fabian people, as it would bore me to tears, and
would only have done it to back her up, so I hope she
won’t put anyone else on to me. Dora says you are fat, and
something that at first I thought was “beneath considera-
tion,” which gave me a faint hope that you had ceased to
be a philosopher, but on looking at it again I see that it is
“writing about education.”

Dorothy Wrinch said that she was coming down to see
you early in August, and I suggested driving her down, but
I suppose that means taking old Heavyweight too. The
time she suggested, shortly after the August Bank Holi-
day, would suit me if you could have me then. You will no
doubt be surprised to hear that I am going to the British
Ass. this year, as it is held at Southampton, quite con-
venient.

Damn that acid old spinster!

Yours affectionately,
Russell

50 Cleveland Square
London, W.2
15 June, 1925

Dear Bertie:

Thanks for your amusing letter. I was going to write to
you anyhow, because I have been reading your delightful
What I Believe. My word! You have compressed it, and

* This, of course, was quite untrue.

248 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

succeeded in saying a good many things calculated to be
thoroughly annoying and disconcerting to the virtuous La,
the space. I am so delighted with it that I am going to get
half-a-dozen copies and ^ve them away where I tbinV
Aey will be appreciated. I like your conclusive proof that
Ib ishopj are much more brut^ than Aztecs who go in for
shuman sacrifices. I^onT'thmFT'^lI try a copy on my
tame bishop because, although I am very fond of him,
intellect is not his strong point.

I am going to write to Dorothy and make your sugges-
tion.

Yours affectionately,
Russell

8 Woburn Place, W.C.l
Gresham Hotel, London
June 21. 1925

Dear Mr. Russell:

Shortly after you left in March I found a publisher for
my bool^ a semi-private company in Paris. Several weeks
ago a few of the proofs reached me. Yesterday morning I
found myself before the Ma^strate at Bow Street after a
night in prison.

. In the afternoon of Jrme 19 an officer from Scotland
Yard called to see me bringing with him a bundle of the
proofs of my book which he described as “grossly ob-
scene.” He said I would have to appear before the Magis-
trate on the charge of sending improper matter through
the post. He examined my passport and found it had not
been registered. I was arrested and escorted to Bow Street
to register my passport, and detained over night. The
Alien Officer brought a charge of failure to register my
passport to which I pleaded guilty before the Magistrate
nd offered explanation of my"^ negUgence. The Scotland
Yard agent brought a charge of sending obscene literature
by post and asked the Magistrate to punish (I believe he
said) and make arrangement for ' my deportation. The

Second Marriage

249

puQisliment, I believe, refers to a heavy fine or imprison-
ment.

I am on bail, 10 pounds, and the case is to be tried on
Saturday June 27 at about 11 o’clock, I shall find out
definitely tomorrow as to the hour.

Mr. Ewer thinks he can find an attorney to take my
case. I shall go to the American Consul tomorrow and
talk with others here who know me. Shall probably see Dr.
EUis tomorrow.

If you can offer any advice I shall be glad.

Sincerely yours,
Gertrude Beasly

Miss Beasly was a schoolteacher from Texas, who wrote,
an autobiography. It was truthful, which is illegal.

To Max Newman*

24fh April 1928

Dear Newman:

Many thanks for sending me the off-print of your ar-
ticle about me in Mind. I read it with great interest and
some dismay. You make it entirely obvious that my state-
ments to the effect that nothing is known about the physi-
cal world except its structure are either false or trivial, and
I am somewhat ashamed at not having noticed the point
for myself.

It is of course obvious, as you point out, that the only
effective assertion about the physical world involved in
saying that it is susceptible to such and such a structure is
an assertion about its cardinal number. (This by the way
is not quite so trivial an assertion as it would seem to be,
if, as is not improbable, the cardinal number involved is
finite. This, however, is not a point upon which I wish to
lay stress.) It was quite clear to me, as I read your article,
that I had not really intended to say what in fact I did say.

* The distinguished mathematician.

250 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

that nothing is known about the physical world except its
structure. I had always assumed spacio-temporal conti-
nuity with the world of percepts, that is to say, I had as-
sumed that there might be co-punctuality between per-
cepts and non-percepts, and even that one could pass by a
jSnite number of steps from one event to another compres-
ent with it, from one end of the universe to the other. And
co-punctuahty I regarded as a relation which might exist
among percepts and is itself perceptible.

I have not yet had time to think out how far the admis-
sion of co-punctuality alone in addition to structure would
protect me from your criticisms, nor yet how far it would
weaken the plausibility of my metaphysic. What I did
realise was that spacio-temporal continuity of percepts
and non-percepts was so axiomatic in my thought that I
failed to notice that my statements appeared to deny it.

I am at the moment much too busy to give the matter
^ proper thought, but I should be grateful if you could find
time to let me know whether you have any ideas on the
matter which are not merely negative, since it does not
appear from your article what your own position is. I
gathered in talking with you that you favoured phenome-
nalism, but I do not quite know how definitely you do so.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

To Harold Laski

12th May 1928

My dear Laski:

I am afraid it is quite impossible for me to' speak to the
Socratic Society this term, much as I should like to do so.
But the fact, is I am too busy to have any ideas worth

F '' aving, like Mrs. Eddy who told a friend of mine that she
as too busy to become the second incarnation.

I am not at all surprised that Bentham suggests com-
panionate marriage; in fact one could almost have inferred
it. I discovered accidentally from an old envelope used as
a bookmark that at the moment of my birth my father
was readirig Bentham’s Table of the Springs of Action.

Second Marriage

251

Evidently this caused me to be Benthamitically “condi-
tioned,” as he has always seemed to me a most sensible
feUow. But as a schoolmaster, I am gradually being driven
to more radical proposals, such as those of Plato. If
there were an international government I should seriously
be in favour of the root and branch abolition of the family,
but as things are, I am afraid it would make people more
patriotic.

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

To Mr. Gardner Jackson

28th May 1929

Dear Mr. Jackson:

■ I am sorry I shall not be in America at the time of your
meeting on August 23rd, the more so as I shall be there
not so very long after that. I think you are quite right to do
everything possible to keep alive the memory of Sacco
and Vanzetti. It must, I think, be clear to any unpreju-
diced person that there was not such evidence against
them as to warrant a conviction, and I have no doubt in
my own mind that they were wholly innocent. I am forced
to conclude that they were condemned on account of their
political opinions and that men who ought to have known
better allowed themselves to express misleading views as
to the evidence because they held that men with such
opinions have no right to live. A view of this sort is one
which is very dangerous, since it transfers from the theo-
logical to the political sphere a form of persecution which
it was thought that civilized countries had outgrown. One
is not so surprised at occurrences of this sort in Hungary
or Lithuania, but in America they must be matters of grave
concern to all who care for freedom of opinion.

Yours sincerely,

Bertrand Russell

P.S. I hope that out of the above you can make a message
for the- meeting; if you do not think it suitable, please let
me know, and I will concoct another.

252

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

From and to Mr. C. L. Aiken .

■ 8, Plympton St.

Cambridge, Mass.

March 2, 1930

My dear Mr. Russell:

I am preparing a free-lance article on the subject of
par^itic nuisances who bedevil authors: autograph and
photograph hunters, those thoughtless myriads who ex-
pect free criticism, poems, speeches, lectures, jobs, and
who in general impose on the literary profession^. (I sup-
pose you will place me in the same category, but hope you
can feel that the end justifies the means in this case.)

Would you be so good as to send me an account of
your grievances, the length and nature of which of course
I leave to you?

Very truly yours,
Clarice Lorenz Aken

19th March 1930

Dear Mr. Aiken:

In common with other authors, I suffer a good deri
from persons who think that an author ought to do their
work for them. Apart from autograph hunters, I get large
numbers of letters from persons who wish me to copy out
for them the appropriate entry in Who’s Who, or ask me
my opinion on points which I have fully discussed in print.

I get many letters from Hindus, , beseeching me to adopt
some form of mysticism, from young Americans, asbng
me where I think the line should be drawn in petting, and
from Poles, urging me to admit that while aU other na-
tionalism may be bad that of Poland is wholly noble.

I get letters from engineers who cannot understand
Einstein, and from parsons who think that I cannot under-
stand Genesis, from husbands whose wives have deserted
them — not (they say) that that would matter, but the
wives have taken the furniture with them, and what m
these circumstances should an enlightened male do?

Second Marriage

253

I get letters from Jews to say that Solomon was not a
polygamist, and from Catholics to say that Torquemada
was not a persecutor. I get letters (concerning whose gen-
uineness I am suspicious) trying to get me to advocate
abortion, and I get letters from young mothers asking my
opinion of bottle-feeding.

I am sorry to say that most of the subjects dealt with by
my correspondents have escaped my memory at the mo-
ment, but the few that I have mentioned may serve as a
sample.

Yours very truly,
Bertrand Russell

5th May 1930

Dear Miss Brooks:*

I am not sure whether you are right in saying that the
problem of America is greater than that of China. It is
likely that America will be more important during the next
century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of
China. I think America is very worrying. There is some-
thing incredibly wrong with human relations in your coun-
try. We have a number of American children at our
school, and I am amazed at their mothers’ instinctive in-
competence. The fount of affection seems to have dried
up. I suppose all Western civilization is going to go the
same way, and I expect all our Western races to die out,
with the possible exception of the Spaniards and Portu-
guese. Alternatively the State may take to breeding the
necessary citizens and educating them as Jam’ssaries witlr-
out family ties. Read John B. Watson on mothers. I used
to think him mad; now I only think him American; that
is to say, the mothers that he has kno\vn have been Ameri-
can mothers. The result of this physical aloofness is that
the cMld grows up filled 3vith hatred against the world and

* Who became the Rev. Rachel Gleason Brooks, for whose still un-
published book on China I in 1931 wTote a preface.

254

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

anxious to distinguisli himself as a c rimin al. like Leopold
and Loeb.

Yours sincerely,
Bertram) Russell

Here is part of the preface I ^v^ote:

In view of the aggression of Western nations, the Chi-
nese who were in man}^ respects more civilized than our-
selves and at a higher ethical level, were faced with tfcs
necessity of developing a polic}^ with more milit ary’- efficacv
than could be derived from the Confucian teaching. Sodd
life in Old China was based upon the family. Sun Yat Sen
justly perceived that if China was to resist successfully the
onslaughts of militar}' nations, it would be necessar}' to
substitute the state for the family; and patriotism for filid
piety — in a word, the Chinese had to choose whether
they would die as saints or live as siimers. Under Christian
influence they chose the latter alternative.

Ass umin g the nationalist (Chiang Kai Shek) govern-
ment to be successful, the outcome must be to add another
and very important member to the ruthless militaristic
governments v/hich compete in everything except the de-
struction of civilization on which task alone they are pre-
pared to cooperate. All the intellect, all the heroism, ah
the martjTdoms, and ago nizin g disillusionments of Chi-
nese histoiy’ since 1911, will have led up only to this: to
create a new force for evil and a new obstacle to the peace
of the world. The histor)' of Japan should have taught the
West caution. But Western civilization with aU its intelli-
gence is as blind in its operation as an avalanche, and
must take its course to what dire conclusion, I dare not
guess.

In her book This is Your Inheritance: A History of the
Chemung ^untj^, N. Y. Branch of the Brooks Fan^y
(p. 167, published by Century House, Watkins Glen, Hes'.-
York, U.S^., 1963) she wrote: ^‘Bertrand Russell’s pref-
ace (^omitting the laudatory remarks about the author)

Second Marriage

255

"■ sums up what happened during our lifetime in China. . . .
This preface was taken down by me in the parlor of the
Mayflower hotel in Akron, Ohio on the morning of Dec.
1st, 1931 as Mr. Russell paced the floor, smoking his pipe.
Then he signed it and we went to the railroad station; he
to go to another lecturing appointment and I to return to
Oberlin.”

t To H. G. WeUs

= 24th May ’28

L' My dear H.G.:

Thank you very much for sending me your book on The
3 Open Conspiracy. I have read it with the most complete
sympathy, and I do not know of anything with which I
3 agree more entirely. I enjoyed immensely your fable about
;; Provinder Island. I am, I think, somewhat less optimistic
than you are, probably owing to the fact that I was in
; opposition to the mass of mankind during the war? and
thus acquired the habit of feeling helpless.

> You speak for example, of getting men of science to
join the Open Conspiracy, but I should think there is
hardly a single one who would do so, with the exception
, of Einstein — a not unimportant exception I admit. Tlie
j rest in this country would desire knighthoods, in France
j to become membres de I’institut’, and so on. Even among
, younger men, I believe your support would be very' mea-
I gre. Julian Huxley would not be willing to give up his
, flirtations with the episcopate; Haldane would not forego
the pleasure to be derived from the next war.

I was interested to read what you say about schools and
education generally, and that you advocate “a certain
sectarianism of domestic and social life in the interests of
its children” and “grouping of its families and the estab-
lishment of its own schools.” It was the feeling of this
necessity which led us to found Beacon Hill School, and I
am every day more convinced that people who have the
sort of ideas that we have ought not to expose their chil-

256

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

dren to obscurantist influence, more especially during their
early years when these influences can operate upon what
will be their unconscious in adult life.

This brings me to a matter which I approach with some
hesitation, but which I had decided to write to you about
before I read your book. This school is costing me about
£.2000 a year, that is to say very nearly the whole of my
income. I do not think that this is due to any incompetence
in management; in fact all experimental schools that 1
have ever heard of have been expensive propositions. My
income is precarious since it depends upon the tastes of
American readers who are notoriously fickle, and I am
therefore very uncertain as to whether I shall be able to
keep the school going. In order to be able to do so 1
should need donations amounting to about £ 1000 a year.
I have been wondering whether you would be willing to
help in any way towards the obtaining of this sum, either
directly or by writing an appeal which might influence
progressive Americans. I should be very grateful if you
would let me know whether you would consider anything
of the sort. You will see of course that an appeal written
by Dora and me is less effective than one from an impartial
pen, especially if that pen were yours.

I believe profoundly in the importance of what we are
doing here. If I were to put into one single phrase our
educational objects, I should say that we aim at training
initiative without diminishing its strength. I have long held
that stupidity is very largely the result of fear leading to
mental inhibitions, and the experience that we are having
with our children confimis me in this view. Their interest
in science is at once passionate and mteUigent, and their
desire to understand the world in which they live exceeds
enormously that of children brought up with the usual
taboos upon curiosity. What we are doing is of course oidy
an experiment on a small scale, but I confidently expect its
results to be very important indeed. You will realise that
hardly any other educational reformers lay much stress
upon intelligence. A. S. NeUl, for example, who is in many

Second Marriage

257

ways an admirable man, allows such complete liberty that
his children fail to get the necessary training and are al-
ways going to the cinema, when they might otherwise be
interested in things of more value. Absence of opportunity
for exciting pleasures at this place is, I think, an important
factor in the development of the children’s intellectual
interests. I note what you say in your book on the subject
of amusements, and I agree with it very strongly.

I hope that if you are back in En^and you will pay a
visit to this school and see what we are doing.

Yours very sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

From and to A. S. Neill*

Summerhill,

Lyme Regis, Dorset
23.3.26

Dear Mr. Russell:

I marvel that two men, working from different angles,
should arrive at essentially the same conclusions. Your
book and mine are complementary. It may be that the
only difference between us comes from our respective
complexes. I observe that you say little or nothing about
handwork in education. My hobby has always been hand-
work, and where your child asks you about stars my pupils
ask me about steels and screw threads. Possibly also I
attach more importance to emotion in education than you
do.

I read your book with great interest and with verj' little
disagreement. Your method of overcoming your boy's fear
of the sea I disagreed with heartily! An introverted boy
might react with the thought: “Daddy wants to drown
me.” My complex again . . . arising from my dealing with
neurotics mostly.

I have no first-hand knowledge of earl}' childhood, for

* The progressive schoolmaster.

258 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

I am so far unmarried, but your advices about early child-
hood seem to me to be excellent. Your attitude to sex
instruction and masturbation is splendid and you put it
in a way that will not shock and offend. (I have not that
art!)

. I do not share your enthusiasm for Montessori. I can-
not agree with a system set up by a strong churchwoman
with a strict moral aim. Her orderliness to me is a counter-
blast against original sin. Besides I see no virtue in orderli-
ness at all. My workshop is always in a mess but my
handwork isn’t. My pupils have no interest in orderliness
until they come to puberty or thereabouts. You may find
that at the age of five your children wUl have no use for
Montessori apparatus. Why not use the apparatus to make
a train with? I argued this out with Madame Macaroni,
Montessori’s chief lieutenant a few years ago. Is it not our
awful attitude to learning that warps our outlook? After
all a train is a reality, while an inset frame is purely
artificial. I never use artificial apparatus. My apparatus
in the school is books, tools, test tubes, compasses. Mon-
tessori wants to direct a child. I don’t.

By the way, to go back to the sea fear, I have two boys •
who never enter the water. My nephew age nine (the
watch-breaker of the book) and an introverted boy of
eleven who is fuU of fears. I have adxised the other clul-
dren to make no mention of the sea, never to sneer at the
two, never to try and persuade them to bathe. If they do
not come to bathing from their own inner Drang . . . wll,
it does not much matter. One of my best friends, old
Dauvit in my native village, is 89 and he never had a bath
in his life.

You will be interested to know Homer Lane’s theory
about time-table sucking. He used to advocate gix'iog a
child the breast whenever it demanded it. He held that m
sucking there are two components . . . pleasure and nuta-
tion. The time-table cMId accumulates both components,
and when the sucking begins the pleasure component goes
away with a rush and is satisfied in a sort of orgasm. But
the nutrition element is unsatisfied, and he held that many

Second Marriage

259

cases of mal-nutrition were due to this factor, that the
child stopped sucking before the nutrition urge was satis-
fied.

To me the most interesting thing about your book is
that it is scholarly (nasty word) in the sense that it is
written by a man who Imows historj' and science. I am
ignorant of both and I think that my own conclusions
come partly from a blind intuition. I say again that it is
marvelous that we should reach very much the same phi-
losophy of education. It is the only possible philosophy
today, but we cannot hope to do much in the attack
against schools from Eton to the L.C.C. Our only hope is
the individual parent.

My chief difficulty is the parent, for my pupils are
products of ignorant and savage parents. I have much fear
that one or two of them, shocked by my book, may with-
draw their children. That would be tragedy.

Well, thank you ever so much for the book. It is the
only book on education that I have read that docs not
make me swear. All the others are morals disguised as
education.

One warning however . . . there is alwa3's the chance
that your son may want to join the Primrose League one
day! One in ten million chance, but we must face the fact
that human nature has not yet fitted into any cause and
effect scheme; and never will fit in.

If you ever motor to your Cornwall home do stop and
see us here.

Yours very truly,

A. S. Neill

Summerhiil School
Leiston, Suffolk
18 . 12.30

Dear Russell:

Have you any political influence? Tlic Labour Minis-
try are refusing to let me employ a Frenchman to teach
French. The chap I want is with me now, has been ana-
lysed and is a tiptop man to deal with my bunch of problem

260 The A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

lads. Other schools have natives to teach their languages
. . . and I naturally ask why the hell a damned department
should dictate to me about my educational ways. I have
given the dept a fall accoimt of the man and why he is
necessary to me and the fools reply; “But the Dept is not
satisfied that a British subject could not be trained in the
special methods of teaching in operation in your school.”

Have you any political bigbug friend who would or
could get behind the bloody idiots who control our depart-
ments? I am wild as hell.

Cheerio, help me if you can. I know George Lansbury
but hesitate to approach him as he will have enou^ to do
in his own dept.

Tours,

A. S. Neill

20th Dec. 30

Dear Neill:

What you tell me is quite outrageous, I have written to
Charles Trevelyan and Miss Bondfield, and I enclose
copies of my letters to them.

I wonder whether you made the mistake of mentioning
psycho-analysis in your application. You know, of course,
from Homer Lane’s case that policemen regard psycho-
analysis as merely a cloak for crime. The only ground to
put before the department is that Frenchmen are apt to
know French better than Englishmen do. The mom the
department enquires into your methods, the more it will
wish to hamper you. Nobody is allowed to do any good m
this country except by means of trickery and deceit."

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

To Charles Trevelyan

20th Dec. 30

Dear Trevelyan:

A. S. Neill, of Summerhifi School, Leiston, Suffolk, who
is, as you probably know, very distinguished in the educa-

Second Marriage

261

tional world, having developed from a conventional school
dominie into one of the most original and successful inno-
vators of our-time, writes to me to say that the Ministry
of Labour is refusing to allow him to continue to employ
Frenchmen to teach French. He has at present a French
master whose services he wishes to retain, but the Ministry
of Labour has officially informed him that Englishmen
speak French Just as weU as Frenchmen do, and that his
present master is not to be allowed to stay.

I think you wUl agree with me that this sort of thing is
intolerable. I know that many of the most important ques-
tions in education do not come under your department
but are decided by policemen whose judgment is taken on
the question whether a foreigner is needed in an educa-
tional post. If the principles upon which the Alien Act is
administered had been applied in Italy in the 15th cen-
tury, the Western world would never have acquired a
knowledge of Greek and the Renaissance could not have
taken place.

Although the matter is outside your department, I can-
not doubt that the slightest word from you would cause
the Ministry of Labour to alter its decision. A. S. Neill is
a man of international reputation, and I hate the thought
of what he may do to hold up British Bumbledom to
ridicule throughout the civilised world. If you could do
anything to set the matter right, you will greatly relieve
my anxiety on this score.

Yours very sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

P.S. I have also written to Miss Bondfield on this matter.

Summcrhill School
Leiston. Suffolk
22.12.30

Dear Russell:

Good man! That’s the stuff to give the troops. Wiatcvcr
the result accept my thanks. I didn’t mention psycho-

262 The A iitobiography of Bertrand Russell

analysis to them. I applied on the usual form and they
wrote asking me what precise steps I had taken “to find
a teacher of French who was British or an alien already
resident in this country.” Then I told them that I wanted a
Frenchman hut that any blinking Frenchie wouldn’t do
. . . that mine was a psycholo^cal school and any teacher
had to be not only an expert in his subject but also in
handling neurotic Mds.

Apart from this display of what you call Bumbledom I
guess that there will be some battle when Trevelyan’s
Committee on Private Schools issues its report. You and I
will have to fight like hell against having a few stupid
inspectors mucking about demanding why To m my can’t
read. Any inspector coming to me now would certainly
be greeted by Colin (aged 6) with the friendly words,
“Who the fucking hell are you?” So that we must fi^t to
keep "^fiiitehall out of our schools.

I’ll let you know what happens.

Many thanks.

Yours,

A. S. Neill

About time that you and I met again and compared notes.

Leiston. 31.12.30

Dear Russell:

You have done the deed. The letter [from the Mimstry
of Labour] is a nasty one but I guess that the bloke as
wrote it was in a nasty position. Soimds to me like a good
prose Hynm of Hate.

I have agreed to his conditions . . . feeling like slapping
the blighter in the eye at the same time. It is my first
experience with the bmreaucracy and I am apt to forget
that I am dealing with a machine.

Many thanks for your ready help. My next approach to
you may be when that Committee on Private Schools gets
busy. They will call in aU the respectable old deadheads of

Second Marriage

263

education as expert witnesses (Badley and Co) and un-
less men of moment like you make a fight for it we (the
out and outer Bolshies of education) will be ignored.
Then we’ll have to put up with the nice rules adr'ocated
by the diehards. Can’t we get up a league of heretical
dominies called the “Anal”-ists?

Yours with much gratitude,

A. S. Neill

5th Jan. 31

Dear Neill:

Thank you for your letter and for the information about
your French teacher. I am sorry you accepted the Minis-
try of Labour’s terms, as they were on the run and could,
I think, have been induced to grant unconditional permis-
sion.

I suppose you do not mind if I express to Miss Bond-
field my low opinion of her officials, and to Trevelyan my
ditto of Miss Bondfield? It is quite possible that the Min-
istry may still decide to let you keep your present master
indefinitely. I am going away for a short holiday, and I
am therefore dictating these letters now to my sccretarj'
who will not send them until she hears from you that you
are willing they should go. Will you therefore be so kind
as to send a line to her (Mrs. O. Harrington), and not to
me, as to whether you are willing the letters should go.

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

Neill agreed to my sejiding the following letters:

To Miss Marearet Bondfield

12th Jan. 31

Dear Miss Bondfield:

I am much obliged to you for looking into the matter of
Mr. A. S. Neill’s French teacher. I doubt whether you are
aware that in granting him permission to retain lus present

264 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

teacher for one year your office made it a condition that
he should not even ask to retain his present teacher after
the end of that year.

I do not believe that you have at any time been in
charge of a school, but if you had, you would know that to
change one’s teachers once a year is to increase enor-
mously the difficulty of achieving any kind of success.
What would the .headmaster of one of our great public
schools say to your office if it were to insist that he should
change his teachers once a year? Mr. Neffi. is attempting
aii experiment which everybody interested in modem edu-
.cation considers very important, and it seems a pity that
the activities of the Government in regard to him should
be co nfin ed to making a fair trial of the experiment
impossible. I have no doubt whatever that you vill agree
with me in this, and that some subordinate has failed to
carry out your wishes in this matter.

With apologies for troubling you,

I remain, ,

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

To Charles Trevelyan

12th Jan. 31

Dear Charles: -

Thank you very much for the trouble you have taken in
regard to the French teacher at A. S. NeiU’s school. The
Ministry of Labour have granted him permission to stay
for one year, but on condition that NeiU does not ask to
have his leave extended beyond that time. You wiU, I
think, agree with me that this is an extraordinary condi-
tion to have made. NeiU has accepted it, as he has to yield
force majeure, but there cannot be any conceivable
j isi. 'on for it. Anybody who has ever run a: school
knows that perpetual change of masters is intolerable.
What would the Headmaster of Harrow think if the Min-
istry of Labour obliged him to change his masters once
a year?

Second Marriage

265

Neill is trying an experiment whicli everybody interested
in education considers most important, and Whitehall is
doing what it can to make it a failure. I do not myself feel
bound by Neill’s undertaking, and I see no reason why
intelligent people who are doing important work should
submit tamely to the dictation of ignorant busybodies,
such as the officials in the Ministry of Labour appear to
be. I am quite sure that you agree with me in this.

Thanking you again,

Yours very sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

To and from A. S. NeiU

27th Jan. 31

Dear Neill:

As you will see from the enclosed, there is nothing to
be got out of the Mioistry of Labour.

I have written a reply which I enclose, but I have not
sent it. If you think it will further your case, you are at
liberty to send it; but remember Miss Bondfield is celibate.

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

The enclosed reply to the Ministry of Labour:

27th Jan. 31

Dear Sir:

Thank you very much for your letter of January 26th. \
I quite understand the principle of confining emplojTnent j
as far as possible to the British without regard for effi- /
ciency. I think, however, that the Ministry is not applying j
the principle sufficiently widely. I know many En^ishmen !
who have married foreigners, and many English potential J
wives who are out of a Job. Would not a year be long/
enough to train an English whe to replace the existing i
foreign one in such cases? J

Yours faithfully,
Bertrand Russell

266

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Summerliill School
Leiston, SxiSoIk
28.1.31

Dear Russell:

No, there. is no' point in replying to the people. Verj'
likely the chief aiin in govt offices is to save the face of the
officials. If my man wants to stay on later I may wan^e
it by getting him to invest some , cash in the school and
teach on as an employer of labour. Anyway you accom-
plished a lot as it is. Many thanks. I think I’ll vote Tox}'
next time!

. Today I have a letter from the widow of Norman
MacMunn. She seems to be penniless and asks me for a
job as matron. I can’t give her one and don’t suppose you
can either, I have advised her to apply to our millionaire
friends in Dartington HaU. I am always sending on the
needy to them , . . hating them aU the time for their afflu-
ence. When Elmhirst needs a new wing he writes out a
cheque . to Heals . . . Heals! And here am I absolutely
gravelled to raise cash for a pottery shed. Pioneering is a
wash out, man. I am getting weary of cleaning up the mess
that parents make. At present I have a lad of six who shits
his pants six times daily ... his dear mamma “cured” him
by making him eat the shit. I get no gratitude at all , . .
when after years of labour I cure this lad the mother wiU
then send him to a “nice” school.. It ain’t good enough . . .
official indifference or potential enmity, parental jealousy
. . . the only joy is in the kids themselves. One day rU
chuck it all and start a nice hotel round about Salzburg.

You’ll gather that I am rather fed this morning. I’d like
to meet you again and have a yam. Today my Sti/nmung
is partly due to news of another bad debt . . . £-150 this
year aU told. AU parents whose problems I bettered.

Yours,

A. S. Neill

I wonder what Margaret Bondfield’s views would be on
my views on Onanie!

Second Marriage

267

31st Jan. 31

Dear Neill:

I am sorry you are feeling so fed up. It is a normal
mood witli me so far as the school is concerned. Parents
owe me altogether about £.500 which I shall certainly
never see. I have my doubts as to whether you would find
hotel keeping much better. You would find penniless preg-
nant unmarried women left on your hands, and would
rmdertake the care of them and their children for the rest
of their natural lives. You might find this scarcely more
lucrative than a modem school. Nobody can make a liv-
ing, except by dishonesty or cmelty, at no matter what
trade.

It is all very sad about Elmhirst. However, I always
think that a man who marries money has to work for his
living. I have no room for a Matron at the moment, having
at last obtained one who is completely satisfactory.

I have sometimes attempted in a mild way to get a little
financial support from people who think they believe in
modem education, but I have found the thing that stood
most in my way was the fact which leaked out, that I do
not absolutely insist upon strict sexual virtue on the part
of the staff. I found that even people who think themselves
quite advanced believe that only the sexually starved can
exert a wholesome moral influence.

Your story about the boy who shits in his pants is hor-
rible. I have not had any cases as bad as that to deal with.

I should very much like to see you ag^. Perhaps we
could meet in London at some time or other. . . .

Yours,

Bertrand Russell

From Mrs. Bernard Shaw Ayot St Lawrence

Welwym, Herts.

28 Oct. 1928

Dear Bertrand Russell:

I was grateful and honoured by your splendidness ‘in
sending me your MS of your lectiue and saying I may

268 The A ulobiography of Bertrand Russell

keep it. It’s wonderful of yon. I have read it once, and
shall keep it as you permit until I have time for another
good, quiet go at it.

You know you have a humble, but convinced admirer
in me. I have a very strong mystical turn in me, which
does not appear in public, and I find your stuff the best
corrective and steadier I ever came across!

My best remembrances to you both. I hope the school
is flourishing.

Yours gratefully,

C. F. Shaw

To C. P. Sanger Telegraph House

Hartins, Petersfield
23 Dec. 1929 -

My dear Charlie:

I am very sorry indeed to hear that you are so ill. I do
hope you will soon be better. Whenever the Doctors vdll
let me I wiU come and see you. It is a year today since
Kate’s operation, when you were so kind — I remember
how Kate loved your visits. Dear Cffiarlie, I don’t think I
have ever expressed the deep affection I have for you, but
I suppose you have known of it.

I got home three days ago and found everything here
satisfactory. The children are flourishing, and it is deli-
cious to be at home. One feels very far off in California
and such places. I went to Salt Lake City and the Mor-
mons tried to convert me^ but when I found they forbade
tea and tobacco I thought it was no religion for me.

My warmest good wishes for a speedy recovery.

Yours very affectionately,
Bertrand Russell

Second Marriage

269

From Lord Rutherford

Newnham Cottage
Queen’s Road
Cambridge
March 9, 1931

Dear Bertrand Russell:

I have just been reading with much interest and profit
your book The Conquest of Happiness & I would like to
thank you for a most stimulating and I think valuable
analysis of the factors concerned. The chief point where
I could not altogether agree was in your treatment of the
factors of envy & jealousy. Even in the simple — and I
agree with you — fundamentally happy life of the scien-
tific man, one has naturally sometimes encountered exam-
ples of this failing but either I have been unusually for-
tunate or it may be too obtuse to notice it in the great
majority of my friends. I have known a number of men
leading simple lives whether on the land or in the labora-
tory who seemed to me singularly free from this failing. I
quite agree with you that it is most obtrusive in those who
are unduly class-conscious. These remarks are not in
criticism but a mere personal statement of my own ob-
servations in these directions.

I was very sorry to hear of the sudden death of your
brother whom I knew only slightly, and I sympathize witlr
you in your loss. I hope, however, you will be interested
enough to take some part in debates in the House of
Lords in the future.

Yours sincerely,
Rutherford

V

When I left Dora, she continued the school until after the
beginning of the Second War, though after 1934 it was no
longer at Telegraph House. John and Kate were made
wards in Chancery and were sent to Darlington school
where they were very happy.

I spent a summer at Hendaye and for part of another
summer took the Gerald Brenans’ house near Malaga. I
had not known either of the Brenans before this and I
found them interesting and delightful. Gamcl Brenan sur-
prised me by turning out to be a scholar of great erudition
and wide interests, full of all sorts of scraps of out-of-the-
way knowledge and a poet of haunting and learned
rh^hms. We have kept up our friendship and she visits us
sometimes — a lovely autumna l person. |

I spent the summer of 1932 at Cam Voel, which I later
gave to Dora. While there, I wrote Education and the
Social Order. After this, having no longer the financial
burden of the school, I gave up writing potboile rs. And \
having failed as a parent, I found that my ambition to
write books that might be important revived.

During my lecture tour in America in 1931, I had con-
tracted with W. W. Norton, the publisher, to write the
book which was published in 1934 under the title Free-
dom and Organization, 1814-1914. I worked at this
book in collaboration with Patricia Spence, commonly
known as Peter Spence, first at a flat in Emperor's Gate
(where John and Kate were disappointed to find neither
an Emperor nor a gate), and then at Deudraeth Castle
in North Wales, which was at that time an annex of Port-
meirion Hotel. I very much enjoyed this work, and I
found the life at Portmeirion pleasant. The hotel was
owned by my friends Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect,
and his wife, Amabel, the writer, whose company was
delightful.

273

274

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

When the writing of Freedom, and Organization was
finished, I decided to return to Telegraph House and teU
Dora she must live elsewhere. My reasons were financial.
I was under a legal obligation to pay a rent of £.400 a
year for Telegraph House, the proceeds being due to my
brother’s second wife as alimony. I wms also obliged to
pay alimony to Dora, as well as all the expenses of John
and Kate. Meanwhile my income had diminished catas-
trophically. This was due partly to the depression, which
caused people to buy much fewer books, partly to the fact
that I was no longer writing popular books, and partly to
my having refused to stay with Hearst in 1931 at his castle
in California. My weekly articles in the Hearst newspapers
had brought me £1000 a year, but after my refusal the
pay was halved, and very soon I was told the articles were
no longer required. Telegraph House was large, and was
only approachable by two private drives, each about a
mile long. I wished to sell it, but could not put it on the
market while the school was there. The only hope was
to live there, and try to make it attractive to possible
purchasers.

After settling again at Telegraph House, without the
school, I went for a holiday to the Canary Islands. On
returning, I found myself, iough sane, quite devoid of
creative impulse, and at a loss to know what work to do.
iFor about two months, purely to afford myself distraction,
ul worked on the problem of the twenty-seven straight lines
Qon a cubic surface. But this would never do, as it was
totally useless and I was living on capital saved during
the successful years that ended in 1932. I decided to write
a book on the daily increasing menace of war., I called
this book V/hich Way to Peace? and maintained in it the
p acifist positio n that I had taken up during the First War.
I did, it istrue, make an exception: I held that, if . ever a
yj WQick Lgoven ira ent were estabhshed. it would
^ t o support it by force against rebels . But as regardsfte
war" to oe feared in tbc immediate 'future, I urged con-
scientious objection.

Later Years of Telegraph House

275

This attitude, however, had become unconsciously in-
sincere. I had been able to view with reluctant acquies-
cence the possibility of the supremacy of the Kaiser’s
Germany; I thought that, although this would be an evil,
it would not be so great an evil as a world war and its
aftermath. But Hitler’s Germany was a different matter. I
found the Nazis utterly revolting — cruel, bigoted, and
stupid. Morally and intellectually they were alike odious
to me. Although I clung to my pacifist convictions, I did
so with increasing difficulty. When, in 1940, England was
threatened with invasion, I realized that, throughout the
First War, I had never seriously envisaged the possibility
of utter defeat. I found this possibility unbearable, and at
last consciously and definitely decided that I must support
what was necessary for victory in the Second War, how-
ever difficult victory might be to achieve, and however
painful in its consequences.

This was the last stage in the slow abandonment of
many of the beliefs that had come to me in the moment
of “conversion” in 1901, I had never been a complete
adherent of the doctrine of non-resistance; I had always
recognized the necessity of the police and the criminal
law, and even during the First War I had maintained,
publicly that some wars are justifiable . But I had allowed
a larger sphere to the method of non-jcsistancc Lr— or.
r adier - T^n n-violent resistance — than later experience
seemed to warrant. It certainly has an important sphere;
as against the British in India, Gandhi led it to triumph.
But it depends upon the existence of certain virtues in
those against whom it is employed. Vifitcn Indians lay
do^vn on railways, and challenged the authorities to crushn
them under trains, the British found such cruelty intolcrff
able. But the Nazis had no scruples in analogous situat/
tions. Tlte doctrine which Tolstoy preached with great
persuasive force, that the holders of power could be mow
ally regenerated if met by non-resistance, was obviously
untrue in Germany after 1933. Clearly Tolstoy was right

276

The Auiobwgraphy of Bertrand Russell

only wiien the holders of power were not ruthless beyond
a point, and clearly the Naas went beyond this point.

But private experience had almost as much to do wlta
changing my beliefs as had the state of the world. In the
school, I found a very definite and forceful exercise of
authority necessary^ if the weak were not to be oppressed.
Such instances as the hatpin in the soup could not be left
to the slow operation of a good environment, since the
need for action was immediate and imperative. In my
second marriage, I had tried to preserve that respect for
my wife’s liberty which I thought that my creed enjoined.

I found, however, that my capacity for forpveness and
what may be called Christian love was not equal to the
demands that I was making on it, and that persistence in
a hopeless endeavour would do much harm to. me, while
not achieving the intended good to others. Anybody else
could have told me this in advance, but I w as blinded by
t heory.

not wish to exaggerate. The gradual change in my
views, from 1932 to 1940, was not a revolution; it was
only a quantitative change and a shift of emphasis. I had
never held the non-resistance creed absolutely, and I did
not now reject it absolutely. But the practici difference,
between opposing the First War and supporting the Sec-
ond, was so great as to mask the considerable degree of
theoretical consistency that in fact existed.

Although my reason was wholly convinced, my emo-
tions followed with reluctance. My whole nature had been
involved in my opposition to the First War, whereas it was
A a divided self that favoured the Second. I have never since
1940 recovered the same degree of unity between qS ffllSS
and emofipTi as I had possessed from 1914 to 1918. I
think that, in permitting myself that unity, I had allowed
myself more of a creed than scientific intelligence can
justify. Tq.TQllew-sc ientific intelligence-wdierever it may
l ead me had alwmy '^s se^ ed' to me the most imperativep f
moral 'precepts for med and l nave followed this precept

Later Years of Telegraph House

277

even when it has involved a loss of what I myself had
taken for deep spiritual insight.

About a year and a half was spent by Peter Spence,
with whom for some time I had been in love, and me on
The Amberley Papers, a record of the brief life of my
parents. There was something of the ivory tower in this
work. My parents had not been faced with our modern
problems; their radicalism was confident, and throughout
their lives the world was moving in directions that to them
seemed good. And although they opposed aristocratic
privilege, it survived intact, and they, however involun-
tarily, profited by it. They lived in a comfortable, spa-
cious, hopeful world, yet in spite of this I could wholly
approve of them. This was restful, and in raising a monu-
ment to them my feelings of filial piety were assuaged.
But I could not pretend that the work was really impor-
tant, I had had a period of uncreative barrenness, but it
had ended, and it was time to turn to something less
remote.

My next piece of work was Power: A New Social Anal-
ysis. In this book I maintained that a sphere for freedom
is still desirable even in a socialist state, but this sphere
has to be defined afresh and not in liberal terms. This
doctrine I stdl hold. The thesis of this book seems to me
important, and I hoped that it would attract more atten-
tion than it has done. It was intended as a refutation botli
of Marx and of the classical economists, not on a point of
detail, but on the fundamental assumptions that (hey
shared. I argued that power, rather than wealth, should bc\
the basic concept in social theorj', and that social jus lice I
should consist in equalizati on of power^tq tlie__gtcalcst')
prd gtT5SbIg~tfegr^ e<;Trloiiov?S"~niat Slate ownership of *
land and capital was no advance unless the Stale was i
democratic, and even then only if methods were devised \
for curbing the power of ofiicials. A part of my thesis was '
taken up and popularized in Burnham’s Managerial Revo-
lution, but otherwise the book fell rather flat. I still hold,
however, that what it has to say is of verj' great importance ^

278

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

(if the evfls of totalitarianism are to be avoided, particu-
' larly under a Socialist regime.

Iq 1936, 1 married Peter Spence and my youngest child,
Conrad, was bom in 1937. This was a great happiness.
A few months after his birth, I at last succeeded in selling
Telegraph House, For years I had had no offers, but sud-
denly I had two; one from a Polish Prince, the other from
an English business man. In twenty-four hours, owing to
their competition, I succeeded in increasing the price they
offered by £1000. At last the business man won, and I
was rid of the incubus, which had been threatening me
with ruin since I had to spend capital so long as it was
not disposed of, and vei^^ little capital remained.

Although, for financial reasons, I had to be glad to he
rid of Telegraph House, the parting was painful. I loved
the downs and the woods and my tower room with its
views in all four directions. I had known die place for
forty years or more, and had watched it grow in my
brother’s day. It represented continuity, of which, apart
from work, my life has had far less than I could have
wished. When I sold it, I could say, like the apothecary,
“my poverty but not my will consents.” For a long time
after this I did not have a fixed abode, and thou^t it not
likely that I should ever have one. I regretted this
profoxmdly.

After I had finished Power, I found my thou^ts turning
again to theoretical philosophy. During my time in prison
in 1918, I had become interested in the problems con-
nected with -meaning, which in earlier days I had com-
pletely ignored. I wrote something on these problems in
The Analysis of Mind and in various articles wntten at
about the same time. But there was a great deal more to
say. The logical positivists, with whose general outlook I
had a large measure of agreement, seemed to me on some
points to be falling into errors which would lead away
from empiricism into a new scholasticism. They seemed
inclined to treat the realm of language as if it were self-
subsistent, and not in need of any relation to non-linguistic

Later Years of Telegraph House

279

occurrences. Being invited to give a course of lectures at
Oxford, I chose as my subject “Words and Facts.” The
lectures were the first draft of the book published in 1940
under the title An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth.

We bought a house at Kidhngton, near Oxford, and
lived there for about a year, but only one Oxford lady
called. We were not respectable. We had later a similar
experience in Cambridge. In this respect I have found ■
these ancient seats of learning unique.

LETTERS

To Maurice Amos

16th June 1930

Dear Maurice:

You wrote me a very nice letter last October and I have
not answered it yet. \^filcn you wrote it I was touring
America, which leaves one no leisure for anything beyond
the day’s work. I meant to answer your letter, but as the
right moment went by, the impulse died.

I like Jeans’s book. It is amusing how the physicists
have come round to poor old Bishop Berkeley. You re-
member how when we were young we were taught that
although idealism was, of course, quite the tMng, Bishop
Berkeley’s form of it was rather silly; now it is the only
form that survives. I do not see how to refute it, though
temperamentally I find it repulsive. It ought, of course, in
any case to be solipsism. I lectured on this subject at
Harvard, with Whitehead in the Chair, and I said it
seemed to me improbable that I had composed the parts
of his books which I could not understand, as I should be
compelled to believe if I were a solipsist. Nevertheless I
have never succeeded in finding any real evidence that I
did not do so.

I am very much interested in what you say about your
book on the British Constitution, and especially amused
that you had written 46,000 out of the 50,000 requisite

280 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

words before you reached Parliament. ParBament has be-
come a somewhat unimportant body. In the 19 th cenhir}'
the Prime Ministers resigned when defeated in Parliament
until Gladstone altered the practice; now by the threat of
dissolution they terrorise ParBament The Constitution
would not be appreciably changed if the Prime Minister
were directly elected, selected the Government, and had
to seek re-election either after five years or when a leader
appeared against him in his own Party Press.

I think you are entirely right in what you say about the
Labour Party. I do not like them, b ut an Englishman has
to have a Party just as he has to have trousers, and of the
three "Parties I find them the least painful. My objection
to the Tories is temperamental, and my objection to the
Liberals is Lloyd George. I do not think that in joining a
Part}' one necessarily abrogates the use of one’s reason. I
know that my trousers might be better than they are;
nevertheless they seem to me better than none.

It is true that I had never heard of Holdsworth’s His-
tory of English Law, but in fact I have never read any
books at all about law except one or two of Maitland’s.

Since I returned from America I have been very much
tied here, but I expect to be in London occasionally
during the autumn and I should very much Bke to see you
then.

Sanger’s death was a great grief to me.

Ever yours affectionately,
Bertrand Russell

From and to Bronislaw MaBnowski*

The London School of
Economics
13th November 1930

Dear Russell: t i n v

On the occasion of my visit to your School I iett my
only presentable brown hat in your anteroom. I won er

* The anthropologisL

Later Years of Telesraph House 281

whether since then it has had the privilege of enclosing
the only brains in England which I ungrudgingly regard
as better than mine; or whether it has been utilized in
some of the juvenile experimentations in physics, technol-
ogy, dramatic art, or prehistoric symbolism; or whether it
naturally lapsed out of the anteroom.

If none of these events, or shall we rather call them
hypotheses, holds good or took place, could you be so
good as to bring it in a brown paper parcel or by some
other concealed mode of transport to London and advise
me on a post card where I could reclaim it? I am very
sorry that my absentm i ndedness, which is a cbaract eiislic
of hi^ intelhgence , has exposed you to all the inconven-
ience incidental to the event.

I do hope to see you some time soon.

Yours sincerely,

B. MAUNOWSia

15th Nov. 1930

Dear Malinowski:

My secretary has found a presentable brown hat in my
lobby which I presume is yours, indeed the mere siglit of
it reminds me of you.

I am going to the School of Economics to give a lecture
to the Students’ Union on Monday (17th), and unless my
memory is as bad and my intelligence as good as yours, I
will leave your hat with the porter at the School of Eco-
nomics, telling him to give it to you on demand.

I too hope that we may meet some time soon. I made
the acquaintance of Briffault* the other day, and was
amazed by his pugnacity.

Yours sincerely,
Bertiuwd Russell

* BriSault was a general practitioner from Kew Zealand who ven-
tured into sociology, and for whose book Sin and Sex I did an introduc-
tion in 1931.

282

The.

Pro.

Bert,

'’’‘^’^dRusseU

Russell-

, - r&e CoMciJ ^ ®/30

to TO«,

» -S' Si?

^4 f£t' *’« ie 4 '?“«<=• *

^ ror xjjjjj j . *2ys ij Vf’oulei r, ^ has ^Tff-

S rf° °PP^^nityof if you

to h ^^^'^^beless h -f bone <ioubt

o continue his worh f, him a su%' •

'Sio'S ^ ^ ''°“4r"xr™

®°a competent ■'=“•■ you gif °f =«= repo® 4o

fraternally,
^■^■Mookb

_ Pill School

require

hater y ears of Telegraph House

283

a great deal of work. I do not know anything more fati-
d guing than disagreeing with him in an argument.

Obviously the best plan for me would be to read the
manuscript carefully first, and see him afterwards. How
soon could you let me have his stuff? I should like if
2 possible to see him here before the 5th of April: on that
;• date I shall be going to Cornwall for Easter, and I do not
; want to have any work to do while there, as I have been
• continuously very busy since the end of last summer. I
do not know how long it will be necessary to argue with
, him. I could spare three days, say the Friday, Saturday and
; Sunday preceding April 5th, but it would be difficult for
5 me to spare more. Do you think this would be enou^?

, Yours jraternally,

Bertrand Russell

86, Chesterton Road
Cambridge
March 13/30

Dear Russell:

Wittgenstein says that he has nothing written which it
would be worth while to let you see: all that he has written
is at present in too confused a state. I am sorry that I had
not clearly understood this when I wrote to you before.
What he wants is merely to have a chance of explaining to
you some of the results which he has arrived at, so that
you might be able to report to the Council whether, even
if you thought them mistaken, you thou^it them impor-
tant & such that he ought to be given a chance of going on
working on the same lines; and I hope that a report of this
kind would be sufiicient for the Council. And I should
think 3 days would be ample for this, & that it wouldn’t be
necessary for you to argue vdth him much. He is wiring to
you now to ask if he could see you on Saturday cither at
Harting or in London (if you should be there), so as to
try to make some arrangement with you. I think he wiU
be in Austria on April 5th.

Yours jraternally,

G. E. Moore

284

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

: 11th March 1930

Dear Moore:

Wittgenstein has been here for the weekend, and we
have talked as much as there was time for.

I should be glad to loaow what is the latest date for
reporting to the Council, sinct my impressions at the
moment are rather vague, and he intends while in Austria
to make a synopsis of his work which would make it
much easier for me to report adequately. If it is impossible
to wait another month or so, I wiH do my best to draw up
a report on the basis of our conversations, but I hope this
is not necessary. He intends to visit me again in Cornwall
just before the beginning of the May term, with his synop-
sis.

Yours fraternally,
Bertrand Russell

5th May 1930

Dear Moore:

I had a second visit from Wittgenstein, but it only lasted
thirty-six hours, and it did not by any means suffice for
him to give me a synopsis of aU that he has done. He left
me a large quantity of typescript, which I am to fonvard
to Littlewood as soon as I have read it. Unfortunately I
have been hi and have therefore been unable to get on
with it as fast as I hoped. I think, however, that In the
course of conversation with him I got a fairly good idea of
what he is at. He uses the words “space” and “gramme
in peculiar senses, which are more or less connected with
each other. He holds that if it is significant to say
red,” it cannot be significant to say “This is loud.” There
is one “space” of colours and another “space” of sounds.
These “spaces” are apparently given a priori in the Kan-
tian sense, or at least not perhaps exactly that, but some-
thing not so very different. Mistakes of grammar result
. from confusing “spaces.’Mhen he has a lot of stuff shout
■|,r ii'ty, which is always in danger of becoming what

Later Years of Telegraph House

285

Brouwer has said, and has to be pulled up short whenever
this danger becomes apparent. His theories are certainly
important and certainly very original. Whether they are
true, I do not know; I devoutly hope they are not, as they
make mathematics and logic almost incredibly difiScult.
One might define a “space,” as he uses the word, as a
complete set of possibilities of a given kind. K you can say
“This is blue,” there are a number of other things you can
say significantly, namely, all the other colours.

I am quite sure that Wittgenstein ought to be given an
opportunity to pursue his work. Would you mind telling
me whether this letter could possibly suffice for the Coun-
cil? The reason I ask is that I have at the moment so
much to do that the effort involved in reading Wittgen-
stein’s stuff thorou^ly is almost more than I can face. I
will, however, push on with it if you think it is really
necessary.

Yours iraternally,

Bertrand Russell

86, Chesterton Road

Cambridge

May 7/30

Dear Russell:

I don’t think your letter to me, as it stands, will quite
do as a report to the Council; but I don’t think it is neces-
sary that you should spend any more time in reading Witt-
genstein’s synopsis. What I think is important is that you
should write a formal report (which they might, perhaps,
want to keep in their Report-Book), not necessarily any
longer than your letter, but stating quite clearly & ex-
pressly some things which are only implicit in your letter.
I think the report should state quite clearly just how much
you have been able to do by way of discovering what
work W. has been doing since last June, i.e. partly reading
of the Synopsis & partly W.’s verbal explanations; and
should emphasize that your opinion of its importance, &

286 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

that W. ought certainly to be given an opportunity of
continuing it, is based upon what you have been able to
.learn of the nature of this new work itself, & not merely
on your previous knowledge of W. You see the Council
already Imow that you have a very high opinion of W.’s
work in general, and what they want is your opinion as to
the importance of this particular new work, not merely
based on a presumption that anything W. does is likely to
be important. I think you should try to state, very briefly,
what its nature is & what its originality & importance
consists in.

I’m afraid that to write such a ''report will be trouble-
some; but I hope it wouldn’t take you very long; and I do
think it’s important that it should be done.

Yours fraternally,

G. E. Moore

Beacon Hill School
Harting, Petersfield
8th May 1930

Dear Moore:

I have just sent Wittgenstein’s typescript to Littlewood
with a formal report which he can pass on to the Council.
It says just the same things as my letter to you, but it says
them in grander language, which the Council will be able
to understand. I enclose a copy.

I find I can only understand Wittgenstein when I am
in good health, which I am not at the present moment.

Yours fraternally,
Bertrand Russell

My report to the Council of Trinity on Wittgensteins
work:

Beacon Hill School
Harting, Petersfield

. 8th May 1930

Owing to illness I have been prevented from stud^ng
Wittgenstein’s recent work as thoroughly as I had intende

Later Years of Telegraph House

287

do. I spent five days in discussion with him. while he
-'^lexplained his ideas, and he left with me a bulky typescript,
^U-iPhilosophische Bemerkungen, of which I have read about
ngy.a third. The typescript, which consists merely of rough
notes, would have been very difficult to understand with-
jr^^^out the help of the conversations. As it is, however, I
ri:; believe that the following represents at least a part of the
jrij ideas which are new since the time of his Tractatus:

According to Wittgenstein, when anything is the case
there are certain other things that mi^t have been the
case in regard, so to speak, to that particular region of
r’jj fact. Suppose, for example, a certain patch of wall is blue;
it might have been red, or green, or &c. To say that it is
any of these colours is false, but not meaningless. On the
other hand, to say that it is loud, or shrill, or to apply to
■ it any other adjective appropriate to a sound, would be to
talk nonsense. There is thus a collection of possibilities of
-H a certain kind which is concerned in any fact. Such a col-
lection of possibilities Wittgenstein calls a “space.” Thus
‘7 there is a “space” of colours, and a “space” of sounds.
There are various relations among colours which consti-
tute the geometry of that “space.” All this is, in one sense,
7^ independent of experience; that is to say, we need the
kind of experience through which we know what “green”
^7 is, but not the kind through which we know that a certain
patch of wall is green. Wittgenstein uses the word “gram-
. mar” to cover what corresponds in language to the exis-
*'■ tence of these various “spaces.” Wfiierever a word denot-
7 ing a region in a certain “space” occurs, the word denoting
7 another region in that “space” can be substituted without
producing nonsense, but a word denoting any region be-
longing to any other “space” cannot be substituted with-
out bad grammar, i.e. nonsense.

A considerable part of Wittgenstein’s work is concerned
S', with the interpretation of mathematics. He considers it
false to say that mathematics is logic or consists of tautol-
S ogies. He discusses “infinity” at considerable length tsnd
7 links it with the conception of possibility that he has
‘y

288 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

developed in connection vith his various “spaces.” He
believes in “infinite possibility,” as he calls it, but not in
actual “infinite classes” or “inWte series.” Yt^at he says
about infinity tends, ob\uously against his will, to have a
certain resemblance to what has been said by Brouwer. I
think perhaps the resemblance is not so close as it appears
at first sight. There is much discussion of mathematical
induction.

The theories contained in this new work of ’ftfittgen-
stein’s are novel, very'^ original, and indubitably important
Whether they are true, I do not k^ 0 Vk^ As a logician who
likes simplicity’^, I should wish to think that they are not
but from what I have read of them I am quite sure that he
ought to have an opportunity' to work them out since
w'hen completed they may easily prove to constitute a
whole new philosophy.

BERTRA>rD Russell

To W. W. Norton*

27th Jan. 1931

Dear Norton:

Thank you for your letter of January' 14th. . . .

With regard to The Meaning of Science, I have an
abstract of it and have done some 10,000 words. I am
afraid I could not do the sort of conclusion that you sug-
gest. I do not believe that science per 5e is an adequate
source of happiness, nor do I think that my own scientific
outlook has contributed very greatly to my' oum happiness,
which I attribute to defecating twice a day vath unfailirig
regularity. Science in itself appears to me neutral, that is
to say, it increases men’s pow'er whether for good or for
evU. An appreciation of the ends of life is something that
must be superadded to science if it is to bring happiness.
I do not wish, in any case, to discuss individual happiness,
but only the kind of society to which science is apt to give
rise. I am afraid you may be disappointed that I am not

* The American publisher.

Laler Years of Telegraph House

289

more of an apostle of science, but as I grow older, and no
doubt as a result of the decay of my tissues, I begin to see
the good life more and more as a matter of balance and
to dread all over-emphasis upon any one ingredient. This
has always been the view of elderly men and must therefore
have a physiological source, but one cannot escape from
one’s physiology by being aware of it.

I am not surprised at what people thought of The Con-
quest of Happiness on your side of the Atlantic. What
surprised me much more was that English highbrows
thought well of it. I think people who are unhappy are
always proud of being so, and therefore do not like to be
told that there is nothing grand about their unhappiness.
A man who is melancholy because lack of exercise has
upset his liver always believes that it is the loss of God, or
the menace of Bolshevism, or some such dignified cause
that makes him sad. When you tcU people that happiness
is a simple matter, they get axmoyed vrith you.

All best wishes,

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

17th Feb. 1931

Dear Norton:

Thank you for your letter of February’ 9th. My method
of achieving happiness was discovered by one of the de-
spised race of philosophers, namely, John Locke. You will
find it set forth in great detail in his book on education.
This is his most important contribution to human happi-
ness; other minor contributions were the English, Ameri-
can, and French revolutions.

The abstract [of The Scientific Outlook] that I sent you
is not to be taken as covering all the ground that I shall,
in fact, cover. Certainly education must be included in
technique in society, though I had regarded it as a branch
of advertising. As for beha\nourism, I have included it
under Pavlov. Pavlov did the work which Watson has
advertised.

290

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

I have now done 36,000 words of the book, but after I
have finished it, I shall keep it by me until the end of May
for purposes of revision, and of adding malicious foot-
notes.

I have already done a chapter on “Science and Reli-
gion,” which is explicitly atheistical. Do y^ou object to this?
It would, of course, be possible to give 4e whole thing an
ironical twist, and possibly this might make it better
literature. One could go through the arguments of the
scientists, Eddington, Jeans, and their accomplices, point-
ing out how bad they' are, and concluding that fortunately
our faith need not depend upon them, since it is based
upon the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture. If y'ou pre-
fer this as a literary form, I am prepared to re-cast the
chapter in that sense. At present it is straightforward, sin-
cere, and full of moral earnestness.

Unless I hear from you to suggest an earlier date, I
propose to mail the manuscript, or to hand it to Aanne-
stad if he is stiU m England, during the second week in
June. It is perfectly feasible to send it sooner, but I can
alv/ays improve it so long as I keep it

I much enjoyed seeing Aannestad.

Yours sincerely,
BERTRA>rD Russell

11th March 1931

Dear Nortoiu

You will have seen that my brother died suddenly in
Marseilles. I inherit from him a title, but not a penny Ol
money, as he was bankrupt, A title is a great nuisance to
me, and I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not
wish it employ'ed in connection vdth any of my' literary
work. There is, so far as I know, only one method of
getting rid of it, v/hich is to be attainted of high treason,
and this w'ould involve my head being cut off on Tower
Hill. This method seems to me perhaps somewhat ex-

Later Years of Telegraph House

291

treme, but I am sure I can rely upon you not to make use
of my title in the way of publicity.

" Yours sincerely,

Bertrand Russell

- 21st March 1931

i Dear Mr. Rimham Brown:

ii Einstein’s pronouncement on the duty of Pacifists to
i! refuse every kind of military service has my most hearty
S! agreement, and I am very glad that the leading intellect of

our age should have pronounced himself so clearly and
so uncompromisingly on this issue.

For my part I do not expect, much as I desire it, that
any very large number of men will be found to take up the
position of refusing to bear arms in wartime, nor do I
think that a refusal on the part of two per cent would be
sufficient to prevent war. The next war will, 1 think, be
more fierce than the war which as yet is still called
“Great,” and I think Governments would have no hesita-
tion in shooting the pacifist two per cent. A more effective
form of war resistance would be strikes among munition
workers. But on the whole I expect more from interna-
tional agreements than from the actions of individual
pacifists. While, therefore, I agree with Einstein as to the
duty of pacifists, I put a somewhat different emphasis
upon the political and individual factors respectively.

There is one point upon which perhaps I disagree, on
principle, with him and with many other Pacifists. If an
international authority existed and possessed the sole legal
armed forces, I should be prepared to support it cwn by
force of arms.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

19th Mav 1931

Dear Dr. Stcinbach: v

I am afraid I hnv p Tiotbinuje cgy-helnfiil to sav about the 1
Engli sh l^ ujtge,-X-naljce that literary' persons in Amcr-

'292

The Autobiography of Bertrarid Russell

ica tend to study it as one studies a dead language, that is
to say, it does not occur to them that the written word
can be merely the spoken word transcribed. For my part,
while I am willing to read good authors for the sake of
their rhythms, and also to enrich my vocabulary, it would
not occur to me to read them with any grammatical pm-
pose.

I should define correct English in the year nineteen
hundred and thirty-one as the habits of speech of educated
people in that year, and I see no point in making a dis-
tinction betv'een speech and writing. V^Tien once a distinc-
tion of this sort is allowed to creep in, one soon arrives
at the condition of the literary Chinese. I knew a learned
Chinese who was very keen on substituting the vernacular
(as it is called) for the classical language. I asked him
whether this movement made much progress; he replied
that there are times when it does, and times when it does
not. “For example,” he said, “it made great progress dur-
ing the thirteenth century.” I do not know Qiinese, but I
inferred that classical Chinese corresponded to Latin, and
that the vernacular corresponded to Chaucer. I do not
wish this sort of thing to happen to those who speak
English.

Yours very truly,
Bertrand Russell

This and the following letter are the long and the short of
it.

From and to Will Durant

44, North Drive
Great Neck, N.Y.

Earl Bertrand Russell
Cam Voel, Porthcumo
Cornwall, England

June 8th, 1931

Dear Earl Russell: ,

Will you interrupt your busy life for a moment, and
play the game of philosophy with me?

hater Years of Telegraph House

293

I am attempting to face, in my next book, a question
that our generation, perhaps more than most, seems al-
ways ready to ask, and never able to answer — What is
the meaning or worth of human life? Heretofore this ques-
tion has been dealt with chiefly by theorists, from Ikhna-
ton and Lao-tse to Bergson and Spengler. The result has
been a species of intellectual suicide: thought by its very
development, seems to have destroyed the value and sig-
nificanee of life. The growth and spread of knowledge, for
which so many reformers and idealists prayed, appears to
bring to its devotees — and, by contagion, to many others
— a disillusionment which has almost broken the spirit
of our race.

Astronomers have told us that human affairs constitute
but a moment in the trajectory of a star; geologists have
told us that civilization is a precarious interlude between
ice ages; biologists have told us that all life is war, a strug-
gle for existence among individuals, groups, nations, alli-
ances, and species; historians have told us that “progress”
is a delusion, whose gloiy' ends in inevitable decay; psy-
chologists have told us that the will and the self are the
helpless instruments of heredity and environment, and
that the once incorruptible soul is only a transient incan-
descence-of-the brain. The Industrial Revolution has dc-
stf^ed the home, and the discover^’ of contraceptives is
destroying the family, the old morality, and perhaps
(through the sterility of the intelligent) the race. Love is
analyzed into a physical congestion, and marriage be-
comes a temporary physiological convenience slightly
superior to promiscuity. Democracy has degenerated into
such corruption as only Milo’s Rome knew; and our
youthful dreams of a socialist utopia disappear as wc sec,
day after day, the inexhaustible acquisitiveness of men.
Every’ invention strengthens the strong and weakens the
weak; every new mechanism displaces men, and multiplies
the horrors of war. God, who was once the consolation of
our brief life, and our refuge in bereavement and suffer-
ing, has apparently vanished from the scene; no telescope,
no microscope discovers him. Life has become, in that

294

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

total perspective wiiich is pMosophy, a fitful pullulatiga
of iiuman insects on tlie earth, a planetaiy^ eczema”TEat
may soon be cured; nothing is certain in it except defeat
and death — a sleep from which, it seems, there is no
awakening.

We are driven to conclude that the greatest^ mistake in
human history was the ^scpyery^.ol .truth-Jft'ITas not
made ns free, except' from delusions that comforted us,
and restraints that preserved us; it has not made us happy,
for truth is not beautiful, and did not desen^e to be so pas-
sionately chased As we look upon it now we wonder why
we hurried so to find it. For it appears to have taken
from us ever)' reason for existing, except for the moments
pleasure and tomorrow’s trivial hope.

This is the pass to which science and philosophy have
brought us. I, who have loved philosophy for many years,
turn from it now back to life itself, and ask you, as one
who has lived as well as thought, to help me understand.
Perhaps the verdict of those who have lived is different
from that of those who have merely thou^t. Spare me a
moment to tell me what meaning life has for you, what
: help — if any — religion ^ves you, what keeps you going,
iwhat are the sources of your inspiration and your energy,
iWhat is the goal or motive-force of your toil; where you
find your consolations and your happiness, where in the
last resort y'our treasure lies. Write briefly if you must;
iw'rite at leisure and at length if you possibly can; for every
■ word from you w'ill be precious to me.

Sincerely,

Will Durant

Author of The Story of Philosophy, Transition, The Mai^
sions of Philosophy, Philosophy and the Social Prob-
lem, etc.

Formerly of the Dept, of Philosophy, Columbia Umver-
sity; Ph.D. (Columbia) ; L.H.D. (Syracuse) .

P.S.' A copy of this letter is being sent to Presidents

Later Years of Telegraph House

195

Hoover and Masaryk; tke Rt. Hons. Ramsay MacDonald,
Lloyd George, -Winston Churchill, and Philip Snowden;
M. Aristide Briand; Sigiors Benito Mussolini, G. Marconi
and G, d’Annunzio; Mme. Curie, Miss Mary Garden and
Miss Jane Addams; Dean Inge; and Messrs. Josef Stalin,
Igor Stravinsky, Leon Trotzky, M. K. Gandhi, Rabin-
dranath Tagore, Ignace Paderewski, Richard Strauss, Al-
bert Einstein, Gerhardt Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, Sig-
mund Freud, G. B. Shaw, H. G, Wells, John Galsworthy,
Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Eugene O’Neill.

The purpose in view is purely philosophical. I trust,
however, that there will be no objection to my quoting
from the replies in my forthcoming book On the Meaning
of Life, one chapter of which will attempt to give some
account of the attitude towards life of the most eminent
of living men and women.

20 June 1931

Dear Mr. Durant:

I am sorry to say that at the moment I am so busy as
to be convinced that life has no meaning whatever, and
that being so, I do not see how I can answer your ques- .
tions intelligently.

I do not see that we can judge what would be the result
of the discovery of truth, since none has hitherto been
discovered.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russeli.

From and to Albert Einstein

Capiith bet Potsdam

Waldstr. 7/8

den 14. Okiobcr 1931

Lieber Bertrand Russell/

fch habe schon lange den Wunsch, Ihnen zu scftreiben.
Nichts anderes wollte ich dabei, als Ihnen meine hohe
Bcwunderiing ausdriicken. Die Klarheit, Sicherheit, und
Unparteilichkeit, }?iit der Sic die logischen, philosophis-

296 The A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

chen und menschlichen Dinge in Ihren Biichern hehandelt
haben, steht nicht nur in unserer Generation unerreicht
da.

Dies zu sagen hdtte ich mich immer gescheut, weil Sie
wie die objektiven Dinge so aiich dies selber schon am
besten wissen und keine Bestatigung notig haben. Aber da
lost mir ein kleiner Journalist, der mich heute aufsuchte,
die Zunge. Es handelt sich da um ein internationales jour-
nalistisches Dnternehmen {Cooperation) dem die besten
Leute als Mitarbeiter angehoren, und das sich die Aufgabe
gestellt hat, das Publikum in alien Ldndern in interna-
tionalem Sinne zu erzjehen. Mittel: Artikel von Stalls-
inannern und Journalisten, welche einschlagige Fragen
behandeln, werden systematisch in Zeitungen aller Lan-
der verdffentlicht.

Herr Dr. J. Revesz geht in kurzem nach England, um fitr
diese Sache zu wirken. Es wiirde nach meiner Ueberzeu-
gimg wichtig sein, wenn Sie ihm eine kurze Unterrediing
gewahrten, damit er Sie in dieser Angelegenheit informieren
kann. Ich richte eine solche Bitte nicht leichthbi an Sie,
sondern in der Ueberzeugung, dass die Angelegenheit Hirer
Beachtung wirklich wert sei.

In freudiger Verehrung,

Ihr,

A. Einstein

P.S. Einer Beantwortung dieses Briefes bedarf es nicht.

(Translation by Otto Nathan) ;

October 14, 1931

Dear Bertrand Russell:

For a long time I have had the wish to wnte yon.
All I wanted to do was to express my feeling of high
admiration of you. The clarity, sureness, and impar-
tiality which you have brought to bear to the logical,
philosophical and human problerhs dealt with in your
books are unrivalled not onl}' in our generation.

I have always been reluctant to say this to you be-

Later Years of Telegraph House

297

cause you know about this yourself as well as you
know about objective facts and do not need to receive
any confirmation from outside. However, a little-
known journalist who came to see me today has now
given me an opportunity to open my heart to you. I
am referring to an international journalistic enterprise
(Cooperation) to which the best people belong as con-
tributors and which has the purpose of educating the
public in all countries in international understanding.
The method to be used is to publish systematically
articles by statesmen and journalists on pertinent
problems in newspapers of all countries.

The gentleman in question, Dr. J. R6v6sz, will visit
England in the near future to promote the project. I
believe it would be important if you could grant him
a short interview so he could inform you about the
matter. I have hesitated to ask of you this favour, but
I am convinced that the project really deserv'es your
attention.

With warm admiration,

Yours,

A. Einstein

P.S. There is no need to reply to this letter.

Telegraph House
Harting, Pctersfield
7.1.35

Dear Einstein;

I have long wished to be able to ininte you for a visit,
but had until recently no house to which to ask you. Now
this obstacle is removed, & I veiy' much hope you v.ili
come for a week-end. Either next Saturday (12th) or the
19th would suit me; after that I shall be for 6 weeks in
Scandinavia & Austria, so if the 12th & 19th arc both
impossible, it will be necessary' to w’ait till the second half
of March. I can scarcely imagine a greater pleasure than a
xasit from you svould give me, & there arc many matters
both in the world of physics & in that of human affairs on

298 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

which I should like to know your opinion more definitely
than I do.

Yours very sincerely,
Bertrand Russell '

From and to Henri Barbusse Vigilia

Miramar par Theoiile
(Alpes-Maritimes)

10 fevrier 1927

Cher et eminent confrere:

Fermettez-moi de joindre itn appel personnel d celid
que vous trouverez ci-inclus et auquel je vous demande de
bien vouloir adherer. Votre nom est un de ceux qui s’im-
posent dans une ligue de grands honnetes gens qui se
leveraient pour enrayer et comhattre V envahissante barbaric
du fascisme.

J’ai redige cet appel spontanement, sans obeir a aucune
suggestion d’ordre politique ou autre. Je n’ai ecouti que le
sentiment de la solidarite et la voix du bon sens: le mal
n’est pas sans remede; il y a "quelque chose a faire”; et ce
qu’on peut faire surtout et avant tout devant les propor-
tions effrayantes qu’a prises le fascisme, c’est de dresser une
force morale, de mobiliser la vraie conscience publique, et
de donner une voix explicite d une reprobation qui est
repandue partout.

Je dois ajouter que, sur la teneur de cet appel, j ai
echange des vues avec Romain Rolland, qui est de tout
coeur avec moi, et qui estime comme moi qu’une levee des
esprits libres, qiCune protestation des personnes eclairees
et respectees, est seule susceptible, si elle est organisee et
continue, de mettre un frein d un etat de choses epouvan-
table.

Je tiens enfin d vous dire que f’ai Vintention de creer^
tres prochainement une revue internationale: Monde, qui
aura pour but de diffuser de grands principes humains dans
le chaos international actuel, de luttre centre V esprit et la
propaganda reactionnaires. Cette publication peut devenir,
sur le plan intellectuel, artistique, moral et social, une
importante tribune, si des personnalites comme vous le

Laier Years oj Telegraph House

299

vetilent bien. EUe servira de vehicide d la voix du Comite,
et donnera corps d sa haute protestation.

Je vous serais reconnaissant si vous me disiez qne vous
acceptez d’etre considere comme un collaborateur dventuel
de Monde.

Je vous serais egalement oblige de me repondre au sujet
de I’appel par une lettre dont je pourrais jaire etat le cas
echeant, en la piibliant en son entier ou en extraits.

Croyez d mes sentiments de haute consideration devouee.

Henri Barbusse

Sylvie

Aumont par Senlis

(Oise)

12 decembre 1932

Mon cher Russell:

Le Comite Tom Mooney voulant profiter du change-
ment de gouvernement aux Etats-Unis pour arriver d la
solution de I’ affaire Tom Mooney, au sujet de laquelle de
nouvelles revelations viennent encore de se produire, a
dScide I’envoi au President Roosevelt de la lettre ci-jointe
qui bien que congue en termes offaciels et tres dejerents,
quoique jermes, nous parait susceptible d’apporter reelle-
ment un tcrme au scandaleux martyre de Tom Mooney
et de Billings.

Je vous demande de bien vouloir y apposer votre signa-
ture et de me la renvoyer d’urgence.

Croyez d mes sentiments amicaux.

Henri Barbusse

Je vous envoie d’ autre part une brochure editee par le
Comite Tom Mooney.

47 Emperor’s Gate

S.W.7

16th December 1932

Dear Barbusse:

I am at all times willing to do anything that seems to
me likely to help Mooney, but I have a certain hesitation
about the draft letter that you have sent me.

300

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

You will, of course, remember that in the time of Keren-
sky the Russian Government made an appeal to President
Wilson on the subject, and that he, in consequence, had
the Mooney case investigated by a number of eminent legal
authorities who reported favourably to Mooney. The State
of California, however, pointed out that the President had
no right to interfere with State administration of justice.

I do not think there is very much point in appealing to the
President Elect, as he will merely take shelter behind his
lack of legal power. In any case it would be no use pre-
senting the letter until after he becomes President, wHch
will, I think, be on March 4th. There is no doubt also that
at thus moment American public opinion is not feeling
particularly friendly to either your country or mine, and I
doubt whether we can usefully intervene until passions
have cooled.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

This letter shows that I was not always impetuous.

From Count Michael Karolyi The White Hall Hotel

70 Guildford St., W.C.l
5th Feb. 1935

My dear Russell:

I want to thank you for the brilliant letter you wrote for
the defence of Rakosi.* The trial is stUl on, and the final
sentence may come any day now. If he does not get a
death sentence it will be due in very great part to 5'our
mter\''ention. I fear in this case however, that he will be
imprisoned for life. Of course, we will try to save him even
so — perhaps we can succeed in getting him exchanged
for something or other from the Soviet government.

*MatySs Rakosi, a Hungarian communist, re-arrested upon his te-
leass from a long prison sentence. His life was saved but he was
imprisoned. In 1940 Russia obtained him in exchange for Hunganan
flags captured in 1849. Later, Rdkosi became Deputy Prime Minister o
Hungary.

hater Years oj Telegraph House

301

The last time I saw you, you invited me to spend a
week-end with you. If I am not inconveniencing you I
should like to come and see you, not this Sunday, but any
other time which would suit you.

There are so many things to talk over with you —
please let me know.

My new address is as above, and my telephone number
is Terminus 5512.

Yours very sincerely,
M. Karolyi

June 1st 1935

Churriana

[Malaga]

Dear Bertie:

I see that I have to say something really very stupid
indeed to draw a letter from you. My letter was written
late at ni^t, when ones thou^ts and fears tend to carry
one away, and I regretted it afterwards. I spent the next
day in penance reading an account of de Montfort’s cam-
paign.

It is easy enough to sympathise with the destructive
desires of revolutionaries; the difficulty in most cases is to
agree that they are likely to do any good. "What I really
dislike about them are their doctrinaire ideas and their
spirit of intolerance. The religious idea in Communism,
which is the reason for its success, (the assurance it ^ves
of Time that is God, being on ones side) will lead in the
end perhaps to a sort of Mohammedan creed of brother-
hood & stagnation. The energy and combativeness of
Christian nations comes, I suspect, from the doctrine of
sin, particularly Original Sin and the kind of strug^e that
must go on for redemption (or for money). But for Au-
gustine’s Manichacanism we should have been a more
docile but less interesting lot. I am opposed to tbis Com-
munist religion, because I think that Socialism shd be a
matter of administration only. Any religious ideas that

302 The A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

get attached to it will be impoverishing, -unless of course
they are treated lightly, as the Romans treated the worship
of Augustus or the Chinese treated Confucianism. But
that of course may [not] be the case. — Anyhow since
one has in the end to accept or reject these things en bloc,
I shall support Communism when I see it is winning —
and I shall always support it against Fascism.

Out here every day brings news of the disintegration of
the Popular Front. Moderate Socialists, Revolutionary
Socialists and Syndicalists are all at loggerheads. Dis-
orders go on increasing and I think that the most likely
end is dictatorship. I incline to think that the best thing
for the country would be a Dictatorship of the moderate
left (present government with Socialists) for, say, ten
years. I understand that the agricultural unemployment
cannot be solved until large areas at present unirrigated
have been made irrigateable. Dams have been begun, but
many more are wanted and fifteen years must elapse till
they are ready. The plan is for the Govt to control invest-
ments & direct them upon these dams, repaying the lenders
by a mortgage on the new irrigated land.

The weather is delicious now and every moment of life
is a pleasure. Besides health and weather — v/hich is
Nature’s health — very little matters. It would be nice if
5^ou rented a house out here & brought out some of your
books. If eveiyUhing in Spain is uncertain — what about
the rest of Europe?

With love from us both to you & Peter

ever yrs,

Gerald Brenan*

Public opinion in England seems alarmingly warlike. I
favour , the dropping of sanctions and conclusion of a
Mediterraneari pact, which would be a check to Mussolini.
But then we must be ready to go to war . if he takes a
Greek island.

* Author of The Spanish Labyrinth find other boohs.

Later Years of Telegraph House

303

In England the importance of Austria’s not going Nazi
is always underestimated. The Times refuses to look at
Central Europe at all. The English are prig^sh about
everything beyond Berlin — Vienna — Venice. I suspect
that you think as I do.

From Mrs. Gerald Brenan

Bell Court

Aldboumc, Marlborouah

[Nov. 1938]

My dear Bertie:

I thought of you very much in those really horrible
days — which must have been dreadful to you going fur-
ther & further away from your children and leaving them
behind in such a world. It is the kind of thing you might
dream of in an evil nightmare — but it was one of those
modem nightmares in which you are still awake.

I share your difficulties. I am and always shall be a
pacifist. But sometimes they seem to “cr\’ Peace Peace
when there is no peace.” What a world we live in.

Power is having wonderful reviews, I sec, and is a best
seller. I am so glad. I hope to read it soon.

We have had an Anarchist from Holland staying with
us, the Secretary of the A.l.T. He was a charming & very
intelligent man, & had been a good deal in Spain with the
C.N.T.

He was a great admirer of yours. He said that he had
recently written an article on Anarchism for an Encyclo-
pedia. In the Bibliography at the end he included "All the
works of Bertrand Russel!” because, he explains, though
they are not actually Anarchist they have “the tendency”
as old Anarchists say.

I was pleased — for whatever Anarchist parties arc in
practice “the tendency” I'm sure is right. tS'c went to
Savemake Forest one day. The autumn leaves were begin-
ning to fall but the day was warm & bright. I wished for
you & Peter & John & Kate. Perhaps we will walk there
again another day.

304

The A utoblography of Bertrand Russell

I hope you & Peter are as happy as it is possible to be
so far from borne & in such days.

With love to you both

Tours ever,
Gamel

Bell Court

AJdboume, Marlborough
[Vk%ter 1938-9]

My dear Bertie:

I was so glad to get your letter and to think that you will
be coming home now before so very long and we shall
see you again.

Yes, we must somehow meet more often. We must have
picnics in Savemake Forest — and find some charming
place to come together half way between Kidlington and
Aldboume. Gerald and I are going to take to bicycles this
summer, so we can meet anywhere.

I am sure America is very difficult to be in now. I was
afraid you and Peter would find it trying m many ways —
the tremendous lionizing must be very exhausting and
very tiresome in the end however well they mean.

Longmans Green are going to bring out my book some
time in the late spring I think, I am glad, for I think in a
small way it is a useful book. It is such a painful picture
of the war state of mind. It is to be called Death’s Other
Kingdom, from T. S, Eliot’s line “Is it like this in Death’s
other kingdom?”

Gerald and I have both read Power with great interest
and great admiration. It has made a great impression, I
gather, not only from the reviews, but from the- fact that
almost every intelligent person I meet happens somehow
in some connection to mention it.

I can understand how you long to be in England. And
I am so glad that you will soon be coming home.

With much love to you all,

Yours,

Gamel

Later Years of Telegraph House

305

I am delighted to learn the real provenance of my name
— but I am not sure how I feel about its nearness to
Camel,

From Mrs. Bernard Berenson The Mud House

Friday's Hill, Haslemere
July 28, 1936

My dear Bertie:

Might I motor over & call upon you and your wife on
Thursday or Friday of this week, or sometime next week?

I’ve been very ill, and one of the results of illness is to
make me understand what things have been precious in my
life, and you were one of the most precious. I do not want
to die without seeing you again & thanking you for so
many things.

Yours aQcctionatcly,
Mary Berenson

To Lion Fitzpatrick Telegraph House

Harting, Petcrsfield
21.12.36

Dear Lion:

It was very disappointing that I was ill just when we
were coming to you — it was gastric flu, brief but inca-
pacitating. We look forward to seeing you towards the
end of January.

As Alys is going to stay with you, I wonder whether
you could say some little word of a friendly sort from me.
I am the more anxious for this because Mrs. Berenson
said a number of very critical things about Alys, to which
I listened in stony silence; & I dare say she went away
saying I had said them. I don’t want to make mischief, so
that there would be no point in mentioning Mrs. Berenson
to Alys; but I should be sorrv' if Alys thought that I said
or felt unfriendly things about her.

Yours,

B R

306

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

The Warden’s Lodgings
All Souls College, Oxford
Dec. 28. 36

Dear Bertie:

All right. I’ll try to do that. But it isnt easy to inform
Alys about you. She likes to t hink she knows everything
about you. At bottom she is intensely interested in you but
she still seems raw even after aU these years. I expect she
cares quite a lot about you still. People are queer. If they
are v/ithout humour they either dry up or get rather ran-
cid. I feel that to be able to regard yourself as somewhat
of a joke is the highest virtue.

I’ll ask (?) [illegible word] over when Alys & Grace
Worthington and after them the Wells go — It will be in
Feb. I am afraid unless I could come in between visits.
But I generally have to go to bed then — oh Lord how
unadaptable the English are and how unimpressionable
the U.S. (?) [illegible word]. These people here are
Scottish & Ulster. Much more flexible breed.

I have a rather miserable spot in my sub-conscious
about your book on philosophy. I do wish you could get
it out of you before you die — I think it would be impor-
tant! — after all that is what you ought to be doing —
not pot boilers. BHl Adams (the son of the Warden here)
has been listening to you somewhere on physics and says
your brain is the clearest in England — (Is this great
praise in a country where brains are nearly all muddled
and proud of it sir?)

My regards to Lady Russell — I hope she is well — I
write to her later —

Lion

Lion Fitzpatrick, the writer of the preceding letter,^ was
a close friend of Alys’s and later also of mine. “Lion was
a nickname given to her on account of her mane of black
hair. Her father had been a Belfast business man, who,
owing to drink, had first gone bankrupt and then died. She
came to England penniless, and was employed by Lady
Henry Somerset on philanthropic work in Somerstown

Later Years of Telegraph House

307

{St. Pancras). I met her first on June 10, 1894, at a
Temperance Procession which I attended because of
Alys. We quarrelled about the Mission to Deep Sea Fish-
ermen, concerning which / made some disparaging re-
mark. Shortly afterwards she followed the example of
Bernard Shaw by standing for the St. Pancras Vestry
{which corresponded to what is now the Borough Coun-
cil). She lived up a back staircase in a slum, and as I had
my Cambridge furniture to dispose of, I gave some of it
to her.

Meanwhile, through Alys, she came to know a young
man named Bobby Phillimore, who had proposed to Alys
but been refused. He was at Christchurch, and was the son
of Lord Phillimore, a very rich Liberal Law Lord and a
close friend of Mr. Gladstone. Bobby, 1 think under Lo-
gan’s influence, became Socialist and a poet. He was the
original of the poet in Shaw’s Candida. He decided that
he wanted to marry Lion, but he was not going to repeat
the mistake of precipitancy which he had committed with
Alys. So he got himself elected to the St. Pancras Vestry
and carefully prepared his approaches. Shortly after Alys
and I were married, when we were living in Berlin, I got a
letter from Lion asking my advice as to whether she should
accept him. I wrote back at once giving twelve reasons
against. By return of post I got a letter from her saying
that she had accepted him.

In the following spring, when Alys and I were staying
with her sister at Fiesole, Lion and Bobby came to see us
on their return from their honeymoon in North Africa. 1
then for the first time learned why she had accepted him.
After she had resolutely refused him for .some time, he
developed heart trouble, and eminent medical men gave it
as their opinion that if she persisted he would die. His
father pleaded with her, hut in vain. Finally, in response
to impassioned requests from Lord Phillimore, Mr. Glad-
stone, though eighty and nearly blind, climbed her slummy
staircase in person to urge her to abandon the role of
Barbara Allen. This was too much for her, and she ac-
cepted her love-sick swain.

308 The A iilobiography of Bertrand Russell

So jar, so good — a pleasant King Cophetua story. But
in Fiesole, after her honeymoon, she told a surprising
sequel. Alys and 1 noticed at once that she had become
profoundly cynical, and amazingly obscene in her conver-
sation, so we naturally pressed her as to what produced
such a change. She told us that, as soon as she and Bobby
were married, he told her he had deceived the doctors, and
had nothing the matter with his heart,* further that,
though he had been determined to marry her, he did not
love her and never had loved her. I believe the marriage
was never consummated.

Bobby's father owned Radlett, at that time a pictur-
esque counhy village; he owned also a rather beautiful
country house between Radlett and Elsfree. He gave
Bobby the house and a free hand in managing the estate.
The poet and the Socialist receded into the background,
and were replaced by a very hard-headed business man,
who proceeded to develop Radlett by putting up vast num-
bers of cheap, ugly, sordid suburban villas, which brought
in an enormous profit. Years later he really did become ill.
His wife nursed him devotedly for about three years, at
.the end of which he died. After his death she told me she
would marry any man who would promise to be always
ill, because she had grown so used to nursing that she did
not know how to fill her days without it.

She did not, however, marry again. She published anon-
ymously a book which had a considerable success, called
By an Unknown Disciple. She had an abortive affair with
Massingham. She took a great interest in psychical re-
search. Being left a rich widow, she devoted a large part
of her income to support of the Labour Party. 1 saw little
of her in her last years, because she demanded that one
should treat seriously things that I regard as nonsense •
sentimental religiosity, second sight, the superior intuitions
of the Irish, and so on. But I regretted these obstacles, and
tried to see her without either quarrels or insincerity.

* However, he died of heart disease some years later.

Later Years of Telegraph House

309

To W. V. Quine* Telegraph House

Halting, Petersfield
6 - 6-35

Dear Dr. Quine:

Your book \System of Logistic] arrived at a moment
when. I was overworked and obliged to take a long holi-
day. The result is that I have only just finished reading it.

I think you have done a beautiful piece of work; it is a
long time since I have had as much intellectual pleasure
as in reading you.

Two questions occurred to me, as to which I should be
gjad to have answers when you have time. I have put
them on a separate sheet.

In reading you I was struck by the fact that, in my work,
I was always being influenced by extraneous philosophical
considerations. Take e.g. descriptions. I was interested in
"Scott is the author of Waverley,” and not only in the
descriptive functions of PM.f If you look up Meinong’s
work, you wUl see the sort of fallacies I wanted to avoid;
the same applies to the ontological argument.

Take again notation (mainly Whitehead’s) : we had to
provide for the correlators in Parts III and IV. Your ap
for our R|S would not do for three or more relations, or
for various forms (such as RljS) we needed.

I am worried — though as yet I cannot put my worry
into words — as to whether you really have avoided the
troubles for which the axiom of reducibility was intro-
duced as completely as you think. I should like to see
Induction and Dedekindian continuity explicitly treated by
your methods.

I am a little puzzled as to the status of classes in your
system. They appear as a primitive idea, but the connec-
tion of a with X (<f)X) seems somewhat vague. Do you
maintain that, if a = x (^x) , the prop, ax, is identical wth
<f)xl Y ou must, if you are to say that all props are sequences.
Yet it seems obvious that “I gave sixpence to my son”

* The Har%'ard lopician.
t Principia Sfalhemalica.

310

The Autobiography oj Bertr.and Russeil

is not tile same hs "my son is one of the people to 'wlioii!

I gave sixpence.”

And do you maintain that an infinite class can be de-
fined otherwise than by a de finin g function? The need oj
including infinite classes was one of my reasons for em-
phasizing ftmctions as opposed to classes in PM.

I expect you have good answers to these questions.

In any case, I have the highest a dmir ation for what you
have done, which has reformed many matters as to whicii
I had always been uncomfortable.

Yours very truly,
Bertraistd Russell

To G. E. Moore Telegraph House

Harting, Petersfield
Feb. 8, 1937

Dear Moore:

I have become very desirous of retumiag to purely
philosophic work; in particular, I want to develop the
ideas in my paper on “The Limits of Empiricism,” & to
investigate the relation of language to fact, as to which
Carnap’s ideas seem to me very inadequate. But I am in
the u^ortunate position of being legally bound to pay
between £.800 & £-900 a year to other people, & having
only £.300 a year of unearned income. I cannot therefore
work at philosophy unless I can get some academic job.

I suppose there is no possibility at Cambridge? I should be
very glad if there were, as my desire to get back to philos-
ophy is very strong.

Yours,

Bertrand Russell

Telegraph House
Harting, Petersfield
Feb. 18, 1937

Dear Moore:

Thank you for your letter, which shows the position to
be much as I supposed. I t hink perhaps, at the moment, .

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‘ Later Years of Telegraph House

it is hardly worth proceeding in the matter, as the chance
of success seems small, & there are other possibilities else-
where. I am very grateful to you for being willing to rec-
ommend me, & if other thin^ fail I will write to you again.
In the meantime, I think it will be best to do nothing.

The Leverhulme Fellowships are settled in June; till
then, I shall not know. In any case they only last two
years.

Yours,

Bertrand Russell

From Desmond MacCarthy 25, Wellington Square

S.W.3

March 16.37

Dear Bertie:

I am relieved that you thou^t my review likely to whet
the public appetite: that is what I tried to do. I did not
write it well: I wrote it too quickly and only had time to
make perfunctory corrections, but I think it will persuade
people that The Amberley Papers are very interesting. I
went to Trinity Commem; and dined in Hall on Sunday
night. I found the review was working there.

What I am pleased about is that I got G. M. Younge to
write about it in the Observer. He wanted to write about
it in the S. T. & I got him, by grabbing the book from him,
to offer his comments to Garvin.

I don’t expect that you hope for a large sale, but I think
it may have a very respectable one & go on selling.

I am interested to hear that you have sold Telegraph
House, & long to hear particulars. I am afraid the price
was not not [sic] good or you would have w'ritten with
more elation. It does not mean — does it that your worst
money worries are at an end? Do you remember what a
fuss Schopenhauer made about having to pension the
woman he pushed do\vn stairs for the term of her natural
life? And he had only a brown poodle dependent on him,
(Its name was Butz) and you have never pushed a woman

312

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

down stairs. Do 5 ^ou remember his triumphant entr}'^ in his
diary after many years, Obit anus, abit onus? I look for-
ward to getting two postcards from you, soon, with these
words on them.

It is of the utmost importance that you should have
leisure to wnte your book clearing up the relation of
grammar and philosophy and many things beside. Is it
true that you could manage on £500 a year till you can
write those post-cards? Your admirers ought to be able to
raise that. Would you object .to being pensioned? I
shouldn’t if my prospects were as good as yours of writing
something valuable.

Time is getting short now. I don’t mean that death is
necessarily near either of us, but the slow death is near;
the softening and relaxing of the faculty of attention
which in its approach feels so like wisdom to the victim.

I met Shav/ not long ago & he talked about his latest
works, which exhibit aU his astonishing aptitudes — ex-
cept grip. I had an impulse to say (but I thought it too
unkind) “Are’nt you afraid though of letting out the deadly
secret — that you can no longer care?'"' I guessed the
nature of that secret from basing obser%'ed what was
threatening me. But with you & me it is stiU only a threat
— You, especially, can stUl care, for your power of feel-
ing has always been stronger than mine. Still, time is
short. We are all (and I mean we also people neither of us
know) that you should philosophise, and vndtc your book
before the power to write it begins to be insensibly sucked
away in the fat folds of that hydra, old age.

I stayed ■with Moore and we were happy — grey-beards
at play, most of the time. He made me read a paper by
Wisdoni on Definition but I did’nt get the hang of it. It
was Wittgensteinian. I wanted to talk about myself and
make Moore talk about himself, but we did’nt care enough
•to get over the discomfort of leaving the pleasant shore of
memories. But damn it I’ll do it next time (This is nt the
first time though, I’ve said that). Do please send me word
^ W’hen you are next in London & come to limch or in the

Later Years of Telegraph House

313

morning or in the afternoon, or to dinner — any time. We
cd put you up. Dermod is a ships doctor, bis room is
empty. And I will come to you for a visit in May after my
Leslie Stephen lecture. Give my affectionate & best wishes
to “Peter” for a happy delivery —

Yours, always,
Desmond

o

In August 1938, we sold our house at Kidlington. The
purchasers would only buy it if we evacuated it at once,
which left us a fortni^t in August to fill in somehow. We
hired a caravan, and spent the time on the coast of Pem-
brokeshire. There were Peter and me, John and Kate and
Conrad, and our big dog Sherry. It poured with rain prac-
tically the whole time and we were all squashed up to-
gether. It was about as uncomfortable a time as I can re-
member. Peter had to prepare the meals, which she hated
doing. Finally, John and Kate went back to Dartington,
and Peter and Conrad and I sailed for America.

In Chicago I had a large seminar, where I continued to
lecture on the same subject as at Orford, namely, “Words
and Facts.” But I was told that Americans would not
respect my lectures if I used monosyllables, so I altered
the title to something like “The Correlation between Oral
and Somatic Motor Habits.” Under this title, or something
of the sort, the seminar was approved. It was an extraor-
dinarily delightful seminar. Carnap and Charles Morris
used to come to it, and I had three pupils of quite out-
standing ability — Dalkey, Kaplan, and Copilowish. We
used to have close arguments back and forth, and suc-
ceeded in genuinely clarifying points to our mutual satis-
faction, which is rare in philosophical argument. Apart
from this seminar, the time in Chicago was disagreeable.
The town is beastly and the weather was vile. President
Hutchins, who was occupied with the Hundred Best
Books, and with the attempt to force neo-Thqmism on the
philosophical faculty, naturally did not much like me, and
when the year for which I had been engaged came to an
end was, I diink, glad to sec me go.

I became a professor at the University of California at
Los Angeles. After the bleak hideousness of Chicago,

317

318

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

which was still in the grip of winter, it was delightful to
arrive in the Californian spring. We arrived in California
at the end of March, and my duties did not begin until
September. The first part of the intervening time I spent
in a lecture tour, of which I remember only two things
with any vividness. One is that the professors at the
Louisiana State University, where I lectured, all tbon^t
well of Huey Long, on the ground that he had raised their
salaries. The other recollection is more pleasant: in a
purely rural region, I was taken to the top of the dykes
that enclose the Mississippi. I was very tired with lectur-
ing, long journeys, and heat. I lay in the grass, and
watched the majestic river, and gazed, half hypnotized, at
water and sky. For some ten minutes I experienced peace,
a thing which very rarely happened to me, and I think
only in the presence of moving water.

In the summer of 1939, John and Kate came to risit
us for the period of the school holidays. A few days after
they arrived the Wax broke out, and it became impossible
to send them back to England. I had to provide for their
further education at a moment’s notice. John was seven-
teen, and I entered him at the University of California,
but Kate was only' fifteen, and this seemed young for the
University. I made enquiries among friends as to which
school in Los Angeles had the highest academic standard,
and there was one that they all concurred in recommend-
ing, so I sent her there. But I found that there was only
one subject taught that she .did not alreadyJa afiw,..aPtL^l
was the virtnet; of the capitalist system . I was therefore
compelled, in spite of her youthj fo~send her to the Uni-
versity. Throughout the y'ear 1939—1940 John and Kate
lived with us.

In the summer months of 1939 we rented a house a
Santa Barbara, which is an altogether delightful place. Un-
fortunately, I injured my back, and had to lie flat on my
back for a month, tortured by almost unendurable sciatica-
The result of this w'as that I got behindhand with t e
preparations for my lectures, and that throughout s

America: 1938-1944

319

^’r-'ioming academic year I was always overworked and al-
' ‘•■'^"A’ays conscious that my lectures were inadequate.

The academic atmosphere was much ic.ss agreeable than
---cin Chicago; the people were not so able, and the Prcsi-
^::dent v/as a man for whom I conceived, I think justly, a
-irtprofound aversion. If a lecturer said anything that was too
’fc; liberal, it was discovered that the lecturer in question did
iikhis .work badly, and he was dismissed. When there were
sr-meetings of the Faculty, the President of the University
;;;;,used to march in as if he were wearing jack-boots, and
:-;rruIe any motion out of order if he did not happen to like
Everybody trembled at his frown, and I was reminded
-jr-of a meeting of the Reichstag under Hitler.

Towards the end of the academic year 1939-1940, I
j.ifWas invited to become a professor at the College of the
City of New York. The matter appeared to be settled, and
.•f.-I wrote to the President of the University of California to
iTi; resign my post there. HSf an hour after he received my \
jl’.Tetter, I learned that the appointment in New York was 1
‘ jl’iiot definitive and I called upon the President to with- \
'L, draw my resignation, but he told me it was too late, 'y
E arnest Christian taxpayer s had bee n protesting agains t \ t
yj having to~contdbut^ to (li^~5Tl!UfV of~ah inl idel, and the \ \
P resident was glad to be quit ol me. J

'The (College the City of New York was an institution
"'’I. run by the City Government. Tliosc who attended it were
y practically all Catholics or Jews; but to the indignation of
the former, practically all the scholarships went to the
^ latter. The Government of New York City was virtually a
satellite of the Vatican, but the professors at the City
College strove ardently to keep up some semblance of
academie freedom. It was no doubt in pursuit of this aim
that they had recommended me. An .Anglican bi.shop was
incited to protest against me, and priests lectured the po-
lice, who were practically all Irish Catholics, on my rc-
sponsibility for the local criminals. A lady, whose daugh-
■j ter attended some section of the City College with, which
I should never be brought in contact, was induced to bring

320

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

a suit, saying that my presence in that iostitution -pi-oiild
be dangerous to her daughters virtue. This was not a smt
against me, but against the Municipality of New YorL* I
, endeavoured to be made a part}' to the suit, but was told
I that I was not concerned. Although the Municipality vas
I nominally the defendant, it was as anxious to lose the suit
as the good lady was to win it. The law 3 'er for t hs
p rosecution pronounced my worhs “lecherous. iibidtfTo n^j
lusttuL venerous.. erotomhuac, aphrodisiac, irrsve rent
narrow-minded, untruthful and bereft, of moral fiber ”
1 he suit came before an Irishman who decided agamstme
at length and v.ith wtuperation. I wished for an appeal
but the Municipality of New York refused to appeal
Some of the things said against me were quite fantastic.
For example, I w'as thought wicked for sa 5 ing that very
5 'oung infants should not be punished for masturbatioiL
I A 15^)1031 American witch-hunt was instituted agabst
I me,t and I became taboo throu^out the whole of the
I United States, I was to have been engaged in a lecture
tour, but I had only one engagement, made before the
witch-hunt had developed. The rabbi who had made ^
engagement broke his contract, but I cannot blame him.
Owmers of halls refused to let them if I was to lecture, and
if I had appeared anj'where in public, I should
have been hmched by a Catholic mob, with ms luiThp -
proval of the police. No newspaper or maganms wouid
publish an 5 'thing that I wrote, and I was suddenly de-
prived of all means of earning a lining. As it was legally
impossible to get money out of England, this produced a
very difficult situation, especially as I had my three chil-
dren dependent upon me. Many liberal-minded professors
protested, but they all supposed that as I was an earl I

* Infonnatiori about tbis suit v-Hl be found in The
Case, ed, by John Devrey and Horace M, Kallen, V3^g
and also in the Appendix to V/ky I Am not a Christian, ed. oj r^-
Edwards, Allen & Unwin, 1957, t v t.3

t The Registrar of New York Countj- said publicly
“tarred and feathered and driven oat of the country, itei r
were tj'pical of ths general public condemnation.

America: 1938-1944

321

must have ancestral estates and be very well olT. Only one
man did anything practical, and that was Dr. Barnes, the
inventor of Argyrol, and the creator of the Barnes Foun-
dation near Philadelphia. He gave me a five-year appoint-
ment to lecture on philosophy at his Foundation. This
relieved me of a very great anxiety. Until he gave me this
appointment, I had seen no way out of my troubles. I
could not get money out of England; it was impossible to
return to England; I certainly did not wish ray three chil-
dren to go back into the blitz, even if I could have got a
passage for them which would certainly have been im-
possible for a long time to come. It seemed as if it would
be necessary to take John and Kate away from the Uni-
versity, and to live as cheaply as possible on the charity
of kind friends. From this bleak prospect I was saved by
Dr. Barnes.

The summer of 1940 offered for me an extraordinary
contrast between public horror and private delight. Wc
spent the summer in the Sierras, at Fallen Leaf Lake near
Lake Tahoe, one of the loveliest places that it has ever
been my good fortune to know. The lake is more than
6000 feet above sca-lcvel, and during the greater part of
•the year deep snow makes the whole region uninhabitable.
But there is a three months’ season in the summer during
which the sun shines continually, the weather is warm, but
as a rule not unbearably hot, the mountain meadows are
filled with the most exquisite wild flowers, and the smell
of the pine trees fills the air. Wc had a log cabin in the
middle of pine trees, close to the lake. Conrad and his
nursery governess slept indoors, but there was no room
for the rest of us in the house, and we all slept on various
porches. There were endless walks through deserted coun-
try to waterfalls, lakes and mountain tops, and one could
dive off snow into deep water that was not unduly cold. I
had a tiny study which was hardly more than a shed, and
there 1 finished my Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. Often
it was so hot that I did my writing stark naked. But heat
suits me, and I never found it loo hot for work.

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The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Amid all these delights we waited day by day to know
whether England had been invaded, and whether London
still existed. The postman, a jocular fellow with a some-
what sadistic sense of humour, arrived one morning saying
in a loud voice, “Heard the news? AH London destroyed”
not a house left standing!” And we could not know
whether to believe him. Long walks and frequent bathes
in many lakes helped to make the time endurable, and, by
September, it had begun to seem that England woxild not
be invaded.

I found in the Sierras the only classless society that I
have ever known. Practically aU the houses were i^abited
by university ppofessors, and the necessary work was done
by university students. The young man, for instance, who
brought our groceries was a young man to whom I had
been lecturing throughout the winter. There were also
many students who had come merely for a holiday, which
could be enjoyed very cheaply as everything was primitive
and simple. Americans understand the management of
tourists much better than Europeans do. Although there
were many houses close to the lake, hardly one could he
seen from a boat, since all were carefully concealed in
pine trees; amd the houses themselves were built of pine
logs, and were quite inoffensive. One angle of the house
in which we lived was made of a live and growing tree; I
caimot ima^e what will happen to the house when the
tree grows too big.

In the autumn of 1940 I gave the William James lec-
tures at Harvard. This engagement had been made before
the trouble in New York. Perhaps Harvard regretted hav-
ing made it, but, if so, the regret was politely concealed
from me.

My duties with Dr. Barnes began at the New Year of
1941. We rented a farmhouse about thirty miles
Philadelphia, a very'^ charming house, about two hundre
years old, in rolling country, not unlike inland Dorset-
shire. There was an orchard, a fine old barn, and three
peach trees, which bore enormous quantities of the

America; 1938-1944

323

most delicious peaches I have ever tasted. There were
fields sloping down to a river, and pleasant woodlands.
We were ten miles from PaoU (called after the Corsican
patriot), which was the limit of the Philadelphia suburban
trains. From there I used to go by train to the Barnes
Foundation, where I lectured in a gallery of modem
French paintings, mostly of nudes, which seemed some-
what incongruous for academic philosophy.

Dr. Barnes was a strange character. He had a dog to
whom he was passionately devoted and a wife who was
passionately devoted to him. He liked to patronize col-
oured people and treated them as equals, because he was
quite sure that they were not. He had made an enormous
fortune by inventing Argyrol; when it was at its height, he
sold out, and invested all his money in Government secu-
rities. He then became an art connoisseur. He had a very
fine gallery of modem French paintings and in connection
with the gaUery he taught the principles of aesthetics. He
demanded constant flatter^' and had a passion for quar-
relling. I was warned before accepting his offer that ho
always tired of people before long, so I exacted a five-year
contract from him. On December 28th, 1942, I got a
letter from him informing me that my appointment was
terminated as from January 1st. I was thus reduced once
again from afllucnce to destitution, Tmc, I had my con-
tract, and the lawyer whom I consulted assured me that
there was no doubt whatever of my getting full redress
from the courts. But obtaining legal redress takes time,
especially in America, and I had to live through the
intervening period somehow. Corbusier, in a book on
America, tells a typical story about Barnes's behaviour.
Corbusier was on a lecture tour, and wished to sec Dr.
Barnes’s gallerj'. He wrote for pemiission. which Dr.
Bames always accorded very grudgingly. Dr. Barnes re-
plied that he could see it at nine o’clock on a certain
Saturday morning, but at no other time. Corbusier wrote
again saying that his lecture engagements miidc that time
impossible and would not some other time be suitable. Dr.

324

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Barnes wrote an exceedingly rude letter sa5-ins it was thea
or never. To this Corbusier sent a long answer, which is
printed in his book sa 3 ’ing that he was not averse fronj
quarrels, but he preferred to quarrel with people who
v/ere on the other side in matters of art, whereas he and
Dr. Barnes were both in favour of what is modem, and it
seemed a pity that thej^ should not agree. Dr. Barnes never
opened this letter, but returned it, with the word ""merde"
written large on the envelope.

VvTien my case came into court, Br. Barnes complained
that I had done insufficient work for my lectures, and that
they w'ere superficial and perfunctory. So far as they had
gone, they consisted of the first two-thirds of my History
of y/estern Philosophy, of v,’hich I submitted the manu-
script to the judge, though I scarcely suppose he read it
Dr. Bames complained of my treatment of the men whom
he called Pithergawras and Empi-DokMes. I observed the
judge taking notice, and I won my case. Dr. Bames, of
course, appealed as often as he could, and it was not until
I was back in England that I actually got the money.
Meanwhile he had sent a printed document concerning my
sins to the Master and each of the Fellows of Trinity
College, to warn them of their foUy in inwting me back.
I never read this document, but I have no doubt it was
good reading.

Tn the earlv^ months of 1943 I suffered some financial
stringency, but not so much as I had feared. We sublet
our nice farmhouse, and went to live in a cottage intended
for a coloured couple whom it w'as expected that the in-
habitants of the farmhouse would employ. This consisted
of three rooms and three stoves, each of which had to be
stoked every’ hour or so. One was to warm the place, one
was for cooking, and one was for hot water. When they
went out it was several hours’ work to get them lifted
again. Conrad could hear every word that Peter and I said
to each other, and we had many worrying things to discuss
Vi’hich it was not good for him to be troubled with. But by
this time the trouble about City College had begun to

America: 1938-1944

325

V' biow over, and I was abie to get occasional lecture cn-
gagements in New York and other places. The embargo
was first broken bj' an invitation from Professor Weiss of
2 Bryn Mawr to give a course of lectures there. This re-
2 quired no small degree of courage. On one occasion I was
i so poor that I had to take a single ticket to New York and
: pay the return fare out of my lecture fee. hfy History of
:i Western Philosophy w’as nearly complete, and I wrote to
W. W. Norton, who had been my American publisher, to
: ask if, in view of my difficult financial position, he would
i make an advance on it. He replied that because of his
: affection for John and Kate, and as a kindness to an old
; friend, he would advance five hundred dollars. I thought
■ I could get more elsewhere, so I approached Simon and
; Schuster, who were unknown to me personally. They at
once agreed to pay me two thousand dollars on the spot,
and another thousand six months later. At this time John
was at Harvard and Kate was at Radcliffe, I had been
afraid that lack of funds might compel me to take them
away, but thanks to Simon and Schuster, this proved un-
necessary. I was also helped at this time by loans from
private friends which, fortunately, I was able to repay
before long.

The History of itVeslcrn Philosophy began by accident
and proved the main source of my income for many ycar.s.
I had no idea, when I embarked upon this project, that it
would have a success which none of my other books have
had, even, for a time, shining high upon the American list
of best sellers. While I was still concerned with ancient
times, Barnes had told me that he had no further need of
me, and my lectures stopped. I found the work c.xcecd-
ingly interesting, especially the parts that I knew least
about beforehand, the early mediaeval part and the Jewish
part just before the birth of Christ, so I continued the
work till I had completed the sun.-cy. I was grateful to
Bryn Mawr College for allowing me the use of its library
which I found exxcllent, especially as it provided me with
the invaluable work of the Rev. Charles who publi.':hcd

326

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

translations of Jewish works v,Titten shortly before the
' time of Christ and in a great degree anticipating His teach-
ing.

I was pleased to be writing this history because I had
always believed that history should be v/ritten in the large.
I had always held, for example, that the subject matter of
which Gibbon treats could not be adequately treated in a
shorter book or several books. I regarded the early part of
my History of Western Philosophy as a history of culture,
but in the later parts, where science becomes important,
it is more difficult to fit into this framework. I did my best,
but I am not at all sure that I succeeded. I was sometime
accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a
biased accoimt of the events that I arbitrarily chose to
} write of. But to my min d, a man ^ iipoont

/w rite in teresting history — n. indeed, sudi a manneri sts.
I regar^^it as mere humbug to pretend to lack of hias .
Moreover, a book, like any other work, should be held
together by its point of riew. This is why a book made
up of essays by various authors is apt to be less interesting
as an entity than a book by one man. Since I do not
admit that a person without bias exists, I think the best
that can be done with a large-scale histOTy is to admit
one’s bias and for dissatisfied readers to look for other
writers to express an opposite bias. Which bias is nearer
to the truth must be left to posterity. This point of view on
the writing of history makes me prefer my History of
Western Philosophy to the Wisdom of the West which was
taken from the former, but ironed out and tamed — al-
though I like the illustrations of Wisdom of the West.

The last part of our time in America was spent at
Princeton, where we had a little house on the shores of the
lake. While in Princeton, I came to know Einstein fairly
well. I used to go to his house once a week to discuss with
him and Gddel and Pauli. These discussions were in some
ways disappointing, for, although aU three of them wure
Jews and exiles and, in intention, cosmopolitans, I found
that they all had a German bias towards metaphysics, and
in spite of our utmost endeavours we never arrived at

America: 193 S— 1944

327

common premisses from which to argue. Godel turned
out to be an unadulterated Platonist, and apparently be-
lieved that an eternal “not” was laid up in heaven, where
virtuous logicians might hope to meet it hereafter.

The society of Princeton was extremely pleasant, pleas-
anter, on the whole, than any other social group I had
come across in America. By this time John was back in
England, having gone into the British Navw and been set
to learn Japanese. Kate v.’as self-sufficient at Radcliffc.
having done extremely well in her work and acquired a
small teaching job. There was therefore nothing to keep u.';
in America except the difficulty of obtaining a passage to
England. This difficulty, however, seemed for a long time
insuperable. I went to Washington to argue that I must be
allowed to perform my duties in the House of Lords, and
tried to persuade the authorities that my desire to do so
was very ardent. At last I discovered an argument v/hicli
convinced the British Embassy. I said to them: “You will
admit this is a war against Fascism.” “Yes,” tiiey said;
“And,” I continued, “you will admit that the essence of
Fascism consists in the subordination of the legislature to
the executive.” “Yes,” they said, though with slightly
more hesitation. “Now,” I continued, “you arc the execu-
tive and I am the legislature and if you keep me away
from ray legislative functions one day longer than is neces-
sary, you are Fascists.” Amid general laugiitcr, niy sailing
permit was granted then and there. .A curious difficuity,
however, still remained. My wife and I got A priority, but
our son Conrad only got a B, as he had ns yet tio Icgi-;!:’.-
tive function. Naturally enough wc wished Conrad, who
was seven years old, and his mother to travel together, but
this required that she should consent to be clascificd as a
B. No case had so far occurred of a person nccepting a
lower classification than that to which tliey were c.atitiet!.
and all the officials were so puzzled th.it it took them sonr,;
months to understand. At last, however, dtites were tixcc.
for Peter and Conrad fir.st. and for me ;il'o'.:t .a
later. Wc sailed in May 1944.

328

The Autobiography o} Bertrand Russell

LETTERS

To Charles Sanger’s wife “The Plaisance”

On the Ivlidway at Jackson
Park — Chicago
Nov. 5, 1938

My dear Dora:

Thank you for your letter, which, after some wander-
ings reached me here.

I quite agree with you about the nev^ war-cry, I was
immensely glad when the crisis passed, but I don’t know
how soon it may come up again. Here in America, nine
people out of ten think that we ought to have fought but
America ought to have remained neutral — an opinion
which annoys me. It is odd, in England, that the very
people who, in 1919, protested against the unjust frontiers
of Czechoslovakia were the most anxious, in 1938, to
defend them. And they alv/aj's forget that the first result of
an attempt at an armed defence would have been to ex-
pose the Czechs to German invasion, which would have
been much worse for them than even what they are
enduring now.

I had forgotten about Eddie Marsh at the Ship in 1914,
but your letter reminded me of it. Everybody at that time
reacted so characteristically.

Ottoline’s death was a very great loss to me. Charlie
and Crompton and Ottoiine were my only really close
friends among contemporaries, and now all three are
dead. And day by day we move into an increasingly hor-
rible world.

Privately, nevertheless, my circumstances are happy.
John and Kate are everything that I would wish, and
Conrad Crow (now 19 months old) is most satisfactory.
America is interesting, and solid, whereas England, one
fears, is crumbling. Daphne*' must have had an interesting
time in Belgrade.

* The Sangers’ daughter.

America: 1938-1944

329

I shall be home early in May, and I hope I shall see you
soon there. All good wishes,

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

To W. V. Quine 212 Loring Avenue

Los Angeles, Cal.

16 Oct., 1939

Dear Dr. Quine:

I quite agree with your estimate of Tarski; no other
logician of his generation (unless it were yourself) seems
to me his equal.

I should, consequently, be very glad indeed if I could
induce the authorities here to find him a post. I should be
glad for logic, for the university, for him, and for myself.
But inquiries have shown me that there is no possibility
whatever; they feel that they are saturated both with for-
eigners and with logicians, I went so far as to hint that if
I could, by retiring, make room for him, I might consider
doing so; but it seemed that even so the result could not
be achieved,

I presume you have tried the East: Harvard, Princeton,
Columbia, etc. Princeton should be the obvious place.
You may quote me anywhere as concurring in your view
of Tarski’s abilities.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

From an anonymous correspondent Newark, N . J .

March 4, 1940

Bertrand Russell:

Just whom did you think you were fooling when you
had those hypocritically posed “family man” pictures
taken for the newspapers? Can your diseased brain have
reached such an advanced stage of senility as to imagine
for a moment that you would impress anyone? You poor
old fool!

330

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Even your publicly proved degeneracy cannot over-
shadow your vileness in posing for these pictures and try-
ing to hide behind- the innocence of your unfortunate chU-
dren. Shame on you! Eveiy decent man and woman in the
country loathes you for this vile action of yours more than
your other failings, which, after all, you inherited honestly
enough from your decadent family tree. As for your ques-
tions and concern regarding Church and State connections
in this country — just v/hat concern has anything in this
country got to do with you? Any time you don't like
American doings go back to your native England (if yon
can! ) and 3four stuttering King, who is an excellent exam-
ple of British degenerate royalty — with its ancestry, of
barmaids, and pantrymen!

Or did I hear some one say you were thrown out of that
country of liberal degeneracy, because you out-did the
royal family, haw!

Yours,

Pimp-Hater

P.S. — I notice you refer to some American Judge as an
“ignorant fellow.” If you are such a shining light, just why
are you looking for a new appointment at this late date in
your life? Have you been smelling up the California coun-
tryside too strongly?

From Aldous Huxley Metro-Gold wyn-Mayer

Pictures

Culver-City, California

19.in.40

Dear Bertie: . ^

Sympathy, I’m afraid, can’t do much good; but
must tell 3'ou how much I feel for you and Peter ^ ^
midst of the obscene outcry that has broken out aroun
your name in New York.

Ever yours,
Aldous H.

America: 1938-1944

331

Press statement by the Student Council, College of the
City of New York

March 9, 1940

To the Editor:

The appointment of Bertrand Russell to the staff of the
City College has brought forth much discussion in the
press and has evoked statements, from various organiza-
tions and individuals. We do not wish to enter any con- -
troversy on Prof. Russell’s views on morals and religion;
we feel that he is entitled to his own personal views.

Prof. Russell has been appointed to the staff of the City
College to teach mathematics and logic. With an interna-
tional reputation, be is eminently qualified to teach these
subjects. He has been lecturing at the University of Cali-
fornia and has been appointed visiting professor at Har-
vard University before he comes to the City College in
February 1941. The student body, as well as the faculty,
are of the opinion that the addition of Prof. Russell to the .
facility cannot but help to raise the academic prestige and
national standing of our college.

Nobody questioned public school teachers or City Col-
lege instructors about their belief on the nature of the
cosmos — whether they were Catholics, Protestants, Jews,
atheists or worshippers of the ancient Greek Pantheon —
when they were appointed. The American public educa-
tion system is founded on the principle that reli^on has
nothing to do with secular education and theoretically the
religious beliefs of teachers have nothing to do with their
jobs. Religious groups are free to expound their views.
Why not educators?

By refusing to )'ield to fee pressure being brought to
bear and by standing firm on the appointment of Prof,
Russell, the Board of Higher Education will be saving City
College an academic black eye and doing its duty to the
community in the highest sense.

We wish to stress again in the words of President Mead
that Prof. Russell has been appointed to the City College

332 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

to teach mathematics and lo^c and not his views on mor-
als and religion.

City College has long been subject to attack from var-
ious sources seeking to modify or destroy our free higher
education; the attack on Bertrand Russell is but another
manifestation of this tendency.

Executive Committee
Student Council'

The City College

To Bernard Goltz, March 22, 1940

Secretary, the Student
Council, C.C.N.Y.

Dear Mr. Goltz:

I am very happy to have the support of the student
coimcii in the fight. Old York was the first place where
Christianity was the state religion, and it was there that
Constantine assumed the purple. Perhaps New York will
be the last place to have this honor.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

To Williani Swirsky* 212 Loring Avenue

West Los Angeles; California
March 22, 1940

Dear Mr. Swirsky:

Thank you very much for your letter, and for the enclo-
sures from The Campus. I am very glad indeed that the
students do not share Bishop Manning’s views about me;
if they did it would be necessary to despair of the young.
It is comforting that the Board of Higher Education de-
cided^ in my favor, but I doubt whether the fight is at an
end. I am afraid &at if and when I take up my duties at

* A student at C.C.N.Y.

America: 1938-1944

333

the City College you will all be disappointed to find me a
very mild and inoffensive person, totally destitute of. horns
and hoofs.

Yours gratefully,
Bertrand Russell

The Hahnemann Medical
College and

Hospital of Philadelphia
31 March 1940

Dear Professor Russell:

I owe you so much that I feel I could never adequately
repay you for the part which your writings have played
in my own intellectual development. Having acquired my
share of inhibitions under the En^h “system” of misedu-
cation, I have since 1930 gradually relieved myself of
what used to be termed “a natural reluctance” to address
people to whom I had not been formally introduced. At
this rather trying period in your life I want to reassure
you. It was really Mrs. Russell’s remark (as reported in
The New York Times) which is responsible for precipitat-
ing this letter. This is a strange land, but you are not
strangers here. Your friends here number millions, and as
you have obviously known for a long time, this is really the
most humane, and fundamentally the most decent land in
the world. That is why there is every hope, every reason
to believe, that the decision of a single jurist will ultimately
be faithfully evaluated for what it is worth, and your
appointment to the faculty of City College maintained.
When situations such as yours are ^ven a thorough airing
I have noted that justice is practically always done. It is
only under the cloak of local departmental privacy that
injustice succeeds and may prosper. I have on more than
one occasion suffered the consequences of such private
tyranny, but you are in far different case. There are many
of us who, both as individuals and as members of societies
for the presen'ation of academic and intellectual freedom.

334 ^he Autobiography of Bertrand Russell '

will fight your case, if necessary, to the last ditch. I can
predict, with a degree of prohability, which amounts to
certainty, that despite the barking of the dogs of St. Emul-
phus, common decency will prevail.

I can well realise how full your mailbag must be, so
please don’t attempt to acknowledge this letter. Your
sense of humour will look after you, and you can leave the
rest to us.

With aU good wishes.

Ever yours sincerely,

M. F. Ashley-Montagu
Associate Professor of Anatomy

To Mr. Harry W. Laidler'*'

April 11, 1940

Dear Mr. Laidler:

The undersigned members of the Department of Philos-
ophy at U.C.L.A. are taking the libertj' to answer your
letter of inquiry addressed to Miss Creed. We have all
attended lectures or seminars conducted by Mr. Russell
on this campus, and have therefore first hand knowledge
of the character and the content of his teaching here. We
find him to be the most stimulating teacher we have
known, and his intellectual influence upon the student is
remarkable. The general effect of his teaching is to
sharpen the student’s sense of truth, both by developing
his desire for truth and by leading him to a more rigorous
application of the tests of truth. Also unusual is the influ-
ence of Mr. Russell’s moral character upon the student. It
is impossible to know Mr. Russell without coming to ad-
mire his complete fairness, his unfailing and genuine cour-
tesy, and his sincere love of people and of humanity.

We may add that there has not been any criticism of
Mr; Russell’s teachings on this campus. This Department,
in recommending Mr. Russell’s appointment, was aware

* Of the League for Industrial Democracy.

America: 1938-1944

335

that there would be some criticism on the part of outsiders
of such action by the University. But in no case has there
been any objection based upon Mr. Russell’s work here.
In inviting Mr. Russell to join us we did so in the faith that
the individual instructor is entitled to his individual opin-
ion on political, moral and other social issues, and that
unorthodox opinions in such matters are no ground for
banning an individual from public life.

You may use this letter in any way you think fit.

Yours sincerely,

Hans Reichenbach
Isabel P. Creed
J. W. Robson

Hugh Miller, Acting Chairman

From and to William Ernest Hocking*

16 Quincy Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
April 30, 1940

Dear Russell:

I answered part of your letter of April 14 by telegram:
“No possible objection to engagement at Newark.”

For the other part, which called equally for an answer
— the part in which you expressed the “hope that Har-
vard doesn’t mind too much” — I thought it best to wait
until I could send you something tangible.

The enclosed clipping from Sunday’s Boston Herald
gives a statement issued Saturday evening by our govern-
ing body (“The President and Fellows,” commonly
dubbed “The Corporation”), standing by the appoint-
ment. It will also give you a hint of the kind of attack
which instigated the statement. The page from Monday’s
Crimson shows more of the inside.

Please consider what I say in comment as purely per-
sonal. Individual members of the department have taken

* Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University.

336

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

action, as you have noticed; but the, department has for-
mulated no attitude, and I am speaking for myself alone.

It would be foolish for me to pretend that the university
is not disturbed by the situation. Harvard is not a “state
university” in the sense that it draws its major support,
from legislative grants (as in Indiana, Michigan, etc,).
But it is a state institution, with certain unique provisions
for its government set into the constitution, so that politi-
cal interference with our working is legally possible. The
suit promised by Thomas Dorgan, legislative agent for
the City of Boston, has some footing in the law of the
Commonwealth, though the University is prepared to meet
it. But beyond that, there are possibilities of further legis-
lation which might be serious for an institution already an
object of disUke on the part of certain elements of the
public.

As to the suit itself, the university is not proposing to
contest it on the groimd of “freedom of speech” or “free-
dom of teaching” (for this would make the university
appear as protagonist of a claim of right on your part to
teach your viev/s on sex-morals at Harvard, a claim cer-
tainly uncontemplated in our arrangements and probably
untenable at law). The university is simply holding the
ground of the independence of our appointing bodies
from outside interference. This is a defensible position, if
we can show that we have exercised and are exercising
that independence with a due sense of responsibility to our
statutory, obligations. This line will explain the emphasis
in the university’s statement on the scope of your lectures,
and on the restriction of your teaching to advanced stu-
dents; under the circumstances we shah, have to abide by
this limitation.

(The number of lectures mentioned in the university’s
statement was taken from the words of the founding be-
quest, which reads “not less than six” : in practice the lec-
tures have run to ten or twelve, partly, I suppose, because
of. the shift to a biennial plan.)

We are all terribly sorry that this hue and cry has

America: ] 938-1944

337

arisen, both because of the distress to you, and because it
gives capital prominence to what (I presume) we were
both considering background stuff, in which we are defi-
nitely not interested. For myself, I am equally sorry that
you are making the issue one of freedom of speech in the
New York situation. For if you lose, you lose; and if you
win, you lose also. And the colleges will lose, too; for the
impression already in the public mind will be deepened,
that the colleges insist on regarding aU hypotheses as on
the same level, — none are foolish and none are im-
moral: they are all playthings of debate for a lot of
detached intellects who have nothing in common with the
intuitions of average mankind. Personally I am with the
average man in doubting whether all hypotheses are on
the same level, or can escape the invidious adjectives.

Largely because of this, I have had, so far, nothing to
say in public on this question. I have been cultivating the
great and forgotten right of the freedom of silence, which
it is hard to maintain in this country. If I were talking, I
should agree in the main with the first paragraph of the
editorial in the New York Times of April 20, which you
have doubtless seen, and whose refrain is that “mistakes
of judgment have been made by all the principals in-
volved.”

Your scheme of lecture titles has come, and it looks
splendid to me, — many thanks. I shall write again when
the department has had a chance to look it over.

Sincerely yours,

Ernest Hocking

212 Loring Avenue
Los Angeles, Cal.
May 6 1940

Dear Hocking:

Thank you for your letter. It makes me wish that I
could honourably resign the appointment to the William
James lectures, but I do not see how I can do so without

338

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

laying myself open to the charge of cowardice and of let-
ting down the interests of the whole body of teachers.

I almost wish, also, that the President and Fellows had
not reaffirmed the appointment, since as you say, and as
appears in the newspaper quotation you sent me, the
opposition has considerable basis in law. From my point
of view it would be better to be dismissed now, with finan-
cial compensation, than to be robbed both of the appoint-
ment and of compensation after long anxiety and (&tress.

I did not seek the appointment, and I am not so fond of
the role of martyr as to wish continuously and without
respite to suffer for a cause which concerns others so much
more than me. The independence of American univer-
sities is their affair, not min e.

Some one seems to have misled you as to the line that I
and the Board of Higher Education in New York have
taken about my appointment there. I have never dreamed
of claiming a right to talk about sexual ethics when I am
hired to talk about lo^c or semantics; equally, a man
hired to teach ethics would have no right to talk about
logic. I claim two things: 1. that appointments to aca-
demic posts should be made by people with some com-
petence to judge a man’s technical qualifications; 2. that
in extra-professional hours a teacher should be free to
express his opinions, whatever they may be. City College
and the Board of Higher Education based their defense
solely on the first of these contentions. Their defense was
therefore identical with that which you say is contem-
plated by Harvard.

The principle of free speech was raised by other people,
in my opinion rightly. I am afraid that Harvard, like the
New York Board, cannot prevent popular agitation bas^
on this principle; though it is of course obwous that in
both cases the official defense of the appointment is rightly
based on the independence of duly constituted academic
bodies and their right to make their own appointments. ^

I ask now, in advance, that I may be officially notified
of any legal proceedings taken against the University on

America: 1938-1944

339

account of my appointment, and allowed to become a
party. This was not done in the New York case, because
of the hostility of the Corporation Counsel, who handled
their defence. I cannot endure a second time being slan-
dered and condemned in a court of law without any
opportunity of rebutting false accusations against which no
one else can adequately defend me, for lack of knowledge.

I hope that Harvard will have the courtesy to keep me
informed officially of all developments, instead of leaving
me to learn of matters that vit^y concern me only from
inaccurate accounts in newspapers.

I should be glad if you would show this letter to the
President and Fellows.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

To the Editor of the Harvard Crimson

212 Loring Avenue
Los Angeles, Cal.

May 6 1940

Dear Sir:

I hope you will allow me to comment on your references
in the Harvard Crimson of April 29 to the recent pro-
ceedings concerning my appointment to the City College
of New York.

You say “Freedom of speech will not be the point
under argument, as was the case in the proceedings against
City College of New York, when the latter based an un- ,
successful defense of its Russell appointment on the asser-
tion that Russell should be permitted to expound his moral
views from a lecture platform.”

In fact freedom of speech was not the defense of City
CoUege and the New York Board of Higher Education.
The Board and College based their defense on ffie prin-
ciple of academic freedom, which means simply the inde-
pendence of duly constituted academic bodies, and their
right to make their own appointments. This, according to
your headline, is exactly the defense contemplated by the

340

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Corporation of Harvard. Neither the Board of Hiaher
Education nor the faculty of City College at an)' time
made the claim that I “should be permitted to expound
my moral xdews from a lecture platform,” On the contraiy,
they stated repeatedly and emphasis that my moral
views had no possible relevance to the subjects I had been
engaged to teach.

Even if I were permitted to expound my moral views in
the classroom, my own conscience would not allow me to
do so, since they have no connection with the subjects
Vr'hich it is my profession to teach, and I thinV that the
classroom should not be used as an opportunity for propa-
ganda on any subject.

The principle of freedom of speech has been invoked,
not by the New York Board of Higher Education as their
legal defense, but by many thousands of people through-
out the United States who have perceived its obvious rela-
tion to the Controversy, which is this: the American con-
stitution guarantees to everyone the ri^t to express his
opinions whatever these may be. This ri^t is naturally
limited by any contract into which the individual may
enter which requires him to spend part of his time in occu-
pations other than expressing his opinions. Thus, if a sales-
man, a postman, a tailor and a teacher of mathematics all
happen to hold a certain opinion on a subject unrelated to
their work, whatever it may be, none of them should de-
vote to oratory on this subject time which they have been
paid to spend in selling, delivering letters, making suits,
or teaching mathematics. But they should all equally be
allowed to express their opinion freely and without fear
of penalties in their spare time, and to t hink , speak and
behave as they wish, within the law, when they are not
engaged in their professional duties.

This is the principle of free speech. It appears to be
little known. If therefore anyone should require any fur-
ther information about it I refer him to the United States
Constitution and to the works of the founders thereof.

Yours faithfully,
Bertrand Russell

America: I93S-1944

341

To IQngsley Martin* ■ 212 Loring Avenue

. Los Angeles, Cal.

May 13 1940

Dear Kingsley Martin: .

Thanks for your kind paragraph about my New York
appointment. We still hope to appeal, but the Mayor and
corporation counsel, from respect for the Catholic vote,
are doing their best to prevent it. A similar fuss is prom-
ised over my appointment to give the William James lec-
tures at Harvard in the autumn.

Actually I am being overwhelmed with friendship and
support, but in this country the decent people are terrify-
ingly powerless and often very naive. This fuss is serving a
useful purpose in calling attention to the sort of thing’ that
happens constantly to people less well known.

The news from Europe is unbearably painful. We all
wish that we were not so far away, although we could
serve no useful purpose if we were at home.

Ever since the war began I have felt that I could not go
on being a pacifist; but I have hesitated to say so, because
of the responsibility involved. K I were young enough to
fight myself I should do so, but it is more difficult to urge
others. Now, however, I feel that I ought to announce
that I have changed my mind, and I would be glad if you
could find an opportunity to mention in the New States-
man that you have heard from me to this effect.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

To Professor Hocking 1 West 89th St. NY City -

May 16th, 40

Dear Hocking:

I have seen a cbpy of your letter to Russell and I cannot
refrain from saying that I am disturbed by one portion of
it — especially as coming from you.

Of course I do not feel qualified to speak from the Har-

* Editor of the New Statesman.

342 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

vard point of view or to give advice on the matter as far
as it is Harvard’s administrative concern. But I am sure of
one thing; Any weakening on the part of Harv^ard Univer-
sity w'ould strengthen the forces of reaction — ecclesiasti-
cal and other — v/hich are already growing too rapidl}',
presumably on account of the state of fear and insecurity
now so general. I don’t think it is irrelevant to point out
that the N Y City Council followed up its interference in
the City College matter with a resolution in which they
asked for the dismissal of the present Board of Higher
Education and the appointment of a new one — the pres-
ent Board being mainly La Guardia’s appointments and
sticking by the liberal attitudes on acct of which they were
originally appointed — in spite of the Mayor’s recent
shocking cowardice. Tammany and the Church aren’t now
getting the educational plums they want and used to get.
In my opinion (without means of proof) the original
attack on Russell’s appointment, and even more so the
terms of McGeehan’s decision were not isolated events.
The reactionary catholic paper in Brooklyn, The Tablet,
openly expressed the hope that the move might be the
be ginnin g of a movement to abolish all municipal colleges
in Greater New York — now four in number. A policy
of “appeasement” will not work any better, in my judg-
ment, with this old totalitarian institution than it has with
the newer ones. Every weakening will be the signal for
new attacks. So much, possibly irrelevant from your point
of view, regarding the Harvnrd end of the situation.

The point that disturbed me in your letter was not the
one contained in the foregoing gratuitous paragraph. That
point is your statement of regret that Russell raised the
issue of freedom of speech. In the first place, he didnt
raise it; it was raised first by McGeehan’s decision (I can t
but wonder if you have ever seen that monstrous docu-
ment) , and then by other persons, originally in New York
institutions but rapidly joined by others throughout the
country, who saw the serious implications of passively
sitting by and letting it go by default. As far as the legal
side is concerned the issue has been and will be fought on

America: 1938-1944

343

a ground substantially identical with that you mention in
the case of the Harvard suit. But the educational issue is
wider, much wider. It was stated in the courageous letter
of Chancellor Chase of N Y University in a letter to the
Times — a letter which finally evoked from them their
first editorial comment — which thou^ grudging and un-
gracious did agree the case should be appealed. If men
are going to be kept out of American colleges because they
express unconventional, unorthodox or even unwise views
(but who is to be the judge of wisdom or lack of wisdom?)
on political, economic, social or moral matters, expressing
those views in publications addressed to the general pub-
lic, I am heartily glad my own teaching days have come to
an end. There will always be some kept prostitutes in any
institution; there are always [the] more timid by tempera-
ment who take to teaching as a kind of protected calling.
If the courts, vmder outside group pressures, are going to
be allowed, without protest from college teachers, to con-
fine college faculties to teachers of these two tj^es, the
outlook is dark indeed. If I express myself strongly it is
because I feel strongly on this issue. While I am extremely
sorry for the thbrougMy disagreeable position in which the
Russells have been personally plunged, I can’t but be
grateful in view of the number of men of lesser stature
who have been made to suffer, that his case is of such im-
portance as to attract wide attention and protest. If you
have read McGeehan’s decision, I suppose you would feel
with some of the rest of us that no self-respecting person
would do anything — such as the Times editorial sug-
gested he do — that would even remotely admit the truth
of the outrageous statements made — statements that
would certainly be criminally libellous if not protected by
the position of the man making them. But over and above
that I am grateful for the service Russell renders the teach-
ing body and educational interests in general by taldng up
the challenge — accordingly I am going to take the liberty
of sending a copy of this letter to Russell.

Fer3' sincerely yours,

John Dewey

344 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Dear Mr. Russell:

The above is self-explanatory — I know how occupied
you are and it needs no reply.

Sincerely, & gratefully yours,
John Dewey

1737 Cambridge St.
Cambridge, Mass.
April 26, 1940

Dear Bertie:

Evelyn and I cannot let this occasion pass without tell-
ing you how ^eatly we sympathize with you in the matter
of the New York appointment. You know, of course, that
our opinions are directly opposed in many ways. This note
is just to give you our love and deep sympathy in, the
personal troubles which have been aroused —

With an good wishes from us both.

Yours ever,

Alfred Whitehead

Controversy over my appointment to C.C.N.Y. did not
end in 1940.

YtomThe Times, November 23rd and 26th, 1957, on the
publication of Why I Am not a Christian:

To the Editor of The Times 10, Darlington Street, Bath
Sir:

In a letter to The Times which you published on Octo-
ber 15, Lord Russell complains that in 1940 Protestmt
Episcopalians and Roman Catholics in New York City
prevented him from denying in court what he terms their
“libels.” _ ^ . .

The official record of the dedsion declaring him ineli-
gible for the professorship in question makes it clear that
his counsel submitted a brief on his behalf which was
accepted by the court. His subsequent application to re-
open the case was denied by the court on the grounds,

America: 1938-1944

345 .

among others, that he gave no indication of being able to
present new evidence which could change the decision,
which was unanimously upheld by two Courts of Appeal.

He could also have brou^t an action for libel against
anyone for statements made out of court, but he failed
to do this.

In these circumstances is it fair to state, as Lord Rus-
sell does, that Protestant Episcopalians and Roman Cath-
olics prevented him from denying in court the charges
which were largely based on his own writings?

Yours truly,

Schuyler N. Warren

To the Editor of The Times Plas Penrhyn

Penrhyndeudraeth

Merioneth.

Sir:

In your issue of November 23 you publish- a letter from
Mr. Schuyler N. Warren which shows complete ignorance
of the facts. I shah answer his points one by one.

First as to “libels.” I wrote publicly at the time: “When
grossly untrue statements as to my actions are made in
court, I feel that I must give them the lie. I never con-
ducted a nudist colony in England. Neither my wife nor I
ever paraded nude in public. I never went in for salacious
poetry. Such assertions are deliberate falsehoods which
must be known to those who make them to have no foun-
dation in fact. I shah be glad of an opportunity to deny
them on oath.” This opportunity was denied me on the
ground that I was not a party to the suit. The charges that
I did these things (which had been made by the prosecut-
ing counsel in court) were not based on my own writings,
as Mr. Warren affirms, but on the morbid imaginings of
bigots.

I cannot understand Mr. Warren’s statement that my
coimsel submitted a brief on my behalf. No counsel repre-
senting me was heard. Nor can I understand his statement
that two Courts of Appeal upheld the decision, as New

346

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

York City refused to appeal when urged to do so. The
suggestion that I could have brought an action for libel
could only be made honestly by a person ignorant of the
atmosphere of hysteria which surrounded the case at that
time. The atmosphere is illustrated by the general accep-
tance of the prosecuting counsel’s description in court of
me as; “lecherous, libidinous, lustfuL venerous, eroto-
maniac, aphrodisiac, irreverent, narrow-minded, untruth-
ful, and bereft of moral fiber.”

Yoitrs truly,
Russell

From and to Schu 5 Ter N. Warren 10, Darlington Street

Bath

10th January, 1958

Dear Lord Russell:

I am ViTiting with regard to your letter which appeared
in the Tunes on November 26th. In this letter dealing vdth
the controversy and subsequent litigation over your ap-
pointment as a Professor of Philosophy in the college in
the City of New York you contradicted statements made
by me in a letter that was published in the Times on
November 23rd.

I enclose photostats of both decisions of die Supreme
Court for your information, one revoking your appoint-
ment and the second denying your apph'cation to reopen
the case. I also enclose copy of the letter from Mr. Charles
H. Tuttle, then as now, a member of the Board of Hmer
Education.

In view of your denials that no counsel representing yon
was heard, and that no appeal was made on your behali,
the enclosed decisions confirm the correctness of my state-
ments. In the appendix of the volume Why I Am not a
Christian, Professor Edwards mentions hir. Osmund K-
Fraenkel as having been your Attorney and of his nnsnc-
cessful appeals to the Appellate Division and to the Court
of Appeals.

i Very truly yours,

* Schuyler N. Warren.

America: 1938-1944

347

Plas Penrhyn
13 January, 1958

Dear Mr. Warren:

Your letter of January 10 with the enclosed photostats
does not bear out your stated view as to what occurred in
my New York case in 1940. The appeal which you men-
tioned was not an appeal to the substance of the case, but
on whether I should be allowed to become a party. You
have not quite grasped the peculiarity of the whole affair.
The defendants wished to close the case — as at the time
was generally known — and therefore had no wish to see
McGeehan’s verdict reversed on appeal. The statement
that I was kept informed of the proceedings is perhaps in
some narrow legal sense defensible, but I was held in Los
Angeles by my duties there, the information as to what
was happening in New York was sent by surface mail, and
the proceedings were so hurried-up that everything was
over before I knew properly what was happening. It re-
mains the fact that I was not allowed to become a party
to the case, that I was unable to appeal, and that I had no
opportunity of giving evidence in court after I knew what
they were saying about me. Mr. Fraenkel, whom you men-
tion, was appointed by the Civil Liberties Union, not by
me, and took his instructions from them.

Yours truly,
Russell

The City College
New York 31, N.Y.
Department of Philosophy
Oct. 4, 1961

To the Editor of the New York Times:

For myself and many of my colleagues I wish to express
our distress at the unfairness and the poor taste shown by
your Topics’ editor’s attempted comical rehashing of the
Bertrand Russell case. It is well known that the educated
world on moral grounds condemned Judge McGeehan s
character assassination of one of the world’s greatest pH-

348 The A utobiography of Bertrand Russell

losophers, and that the courts did not allow Russell to
enter the case. Now that this great man is almost ninety
years old and fighting for the preservation of humanity
(though some of us do not agree with his unilateral dis-
armament policy*), we believe your columnist owes him
and the civilized world an apology.

Philip P. Wiener
Professor and Chairman

289 Convent Avenue
New York City
Dec. 8, 1940

Dear Professor Russell:

After having enjoyed your timely lecture before the
P.E.A.t and friendly chat at the Penn. R.R. terminal, I
reported to my colleagues that we had indeed been filched
of a great teacher who would have brought so much of
light and humanity to our students that the harpies of
darkness and corruption might well have cringed with fear
of a personality so dangerous to their interests. John
Dewey is working on an analysis of the McGeehan deci-
sion in so far as it discusses your books on education. That
will be Dewey’s contribution to the book to be published
by Barnes. Our department has offered to co-operate with
the editors, but we have not yet heard from Horace Kallen,
who appears to be directing the book.

The Hearst papers link your appointment to City Col-
lege with that of the communists named by the State
Legislative Committee investigating subversive politi^
activities of city college teachers, in order to condemn the
Board of Higher Education and recommend its reorgani-
zation under more reactionary control. You may have
noticed in yesterday’s N.Y, Times that President Gannon
of Fordham University recommended that “subversive

* I advocated unilateral disarmament at tins time only for Britain,
t Progressive Education Association.

America: 1938-1944

349

philosophical activities” in the city colleges be investi-
gated!

I noted with interest your plan to devote the next four
years to the history of philosophy. I always regarded your
work on Leibniz next in importance only to your Prin-
ciples of Mathematics and Principia Mathematica. If you
made similar analytical and critical studies from primary
sources of the most influential philosophers — even if only
a few — e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Hume,
Kant and Hegel, you would have contributed to the critical
history of philosophy what only a philosopher equipped
with modem instmments of analysis and a direct knowl-
edge of the texts could do. This would be philosophically
significant as a union of analytical and historical methods
of investigating pervasive ideas like that of freedom
(which exists mainly as an idea) .

I should like to have a chance to discuss this matter
with you, since the whole subject lies close to my chief
interest and activity connected with the Journal of the
History of Ideas. I may be in Philadelphia for the Amer.
Philosophical Assoc. Symposium, Dec. 28, 1940, and
should like to phone you if you are free that evening or
the next day (Sunday, Dec. 29).

Yours sincerely,

Philip P. Wiener

P.S. — Professor Lovejoy might be free to come along to
see you if I knew when you were free to talk history of
philosophy.

To and from Robert Trevelyan

212 Loring Avenue
Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A.
22.12.39

Dear Bob: ^

Ever since I got your letter a year ago I have meant to
write to you, but I felt like God when he was thinking o

350

The Autobiography oj Bertrand Russell

creating the world: there was no more reason for choosing
one moment than for choosing another. I have not waited
as long as he did.

I am established here as Professor of Philosophy in the
University of California. John and Kate came out for the
summer holidays, and stayed when the war came, so they
are having to go to the university here. John has a passion
for Latin, especially Lucretius; unforhmately your Lucre-
tius is stored in Oxford with the rest of my books. (I had
expected to come back to England last spring.)

Thank you very much for the list of misprints.

I wonder what you are feeling, about the war. I try
hard to remain a pacifist, but the thought of Hitler and
Stalin triumphant is hard to bear. .

C.A. [Clifford Allen]’s death must have been a great
sorrow to you. I. do not know what his views were at the
end.

Americans all say “you must be glad to be here at this
time,” but except for the children’s sake that is not how
we feel.

Much love to both you and Bessie from us both. Write
when you can — it is a comfort to hear from old friends.

Yours ever affectionately,
Bertrand Russell

The Shiffolds

Hohnbury St. Mary, Dorking
11 Febr. 1940

Dear Bertie:

It was very nice hearing from you the other day, Md to
know that all is well with Peter and you and the children
(I suppose they are hardly children any longer now) . We
are fairly all right here — at present at any rate. Bessie
keeps quite cheerful, though her eye is no better. I read
to her in the evening now, instead of her reading to me.

We are very glad the children are staying in ^erica.
I hope it won’t be for ever, though. At present things loo '

America: 1938-1944

351

pretty hopeless. I have sent you a copy of my Lucretius
for John, as it might be a help to him. I have also sent my
Poems and Plays, as a Christmas present. Of course, I
don’t expect you to read them from the beginning to the
end: in fact, my advice is if you feel you must read in
them at all, that you should begin at the end, and read
backwards (not line by line backwards, but poem by
poem) , until you get exhausted.

I don’t think I shall write much more poetry. If I do, it
will perhaps be Whitmaniac, in form, I mean, or rather in
formlessness; though no one had a finer sense of form
than W.W., when he was inspired, which he was as much
as or more than most poets. I have quite come back
to my old Cambridge love of him, of his prose as well as
his poetry. His Specimen Days seems to me (especially
the part about the Civil War) one of the most moving
books I know. I’ve been reading another American book,
which will hardly be popular in California, I mean Grapes
of Wrath. It may be unfair and exaggerated about the
treatment of the emigrants, I can’t tell about that; but it
seems to me a rather great book, in an epic sort of way. We
are now reading aloud Winifred Holtby’s South Riding,
which also seems to me very nearly a great book, though
perhaps not quite.

I am brin gin g out a book of translations of Horace’s
Epistles and two Montaigne essays, which I will send you
some time this year, unless the Cambridge Press is bombed,
which hardly seems likely. I have a book of prose too
getting ready; but that will hardly be this year. I cannot
think of a title — it is a “MisceUany,” but all the syno-
nyms (Hotch potch, OUa Podrida etc.) sound undignified,
and some of the material is highly serious. Bessie won’t let
me call it “A Faggot of sticks,” as she says that suggests
it only deserves to be burnt.

Bessie is, I believe, intending to write to you soon, and
after that I hope another year won’t pass before we hear
from you again. We have had the Sturge Moores here
since the war began. He is rather an invalid now. We had

352

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

a pleasant visit from G. E. M. in August. He is lecturics
at Oxford to large audiences. Francis Lloyd says a lot of
Dons go, and are amused or shocked. She seems to get
a lot out of his lectures. We have also an Italian boy, a
Vivante, a nephew of L. de Bosis, to whom I teach Latin
and Greek. He’s just got a scholarship at Pembroke Ox-
ford. It is clear to me now I ought to have been a school-
master.

Much love to you both from B. and me.

Yours ever affectionately,
Bob

212 Loring Avenue
Los Angeles, Cal., U.SA.
19 May 1940

Dear Bob:

Thank you very much for the fine volumes of your
works,, which arrived safely, and which I am delighted to
have.

At this moment it is difficult to think of anything but the
war. By the time you get this, presumably the outcome of
the present battle will have been decided. I keep on re-
membering how I stayed at Shiffolds during the crisis of
the battle of the Marne, and made you walk two miles to
get a Sunday paper. Perhaps it would have been better if
the Kaiser had won, seeing Hitler is so much worse. I find
that this time I am not a pacifist, and consider the future
of civilization bound up with our victory. I don’t think
anything so important has happened since the fifth cen-
tury, the previous occasion on which the Germans reduced
the world to barbarism.

You may have seen that I am to be hounded out of
teaching in America because the Catholics doii’t hke my
views. I was quite interested in this (which involves a
grave danger of destitution) until the present battle began
— now I find difficulty in remembering it.

Yes, I have read Grapes of Wrath, and think it a very
good book. The issue of the migrant workers is a burning
one here, on which there is much bitter feeling.

America; 1938-1944

353

John and Kate are settling in to the university here, and
Conrad (just 3) is 'flourishing and intelligent. We are all
desperately homesick, and hope to return as soon as it is
financially feasible.

Give my love to Bessie and tell her it will be very nice
to hear from her. John was most grateful for Lucretius.

Yours affectionately,
Bertrand Russell

The Shiffolds
3 May 1941

My dear Bertie;

We were so glad to hear from you about you and yours.
I put in this line just before the post goes. Yes Plato was
a comic poet. He did also apparently write some none
too serious pseudo-plulosophical dialogues, which got
taken too seriously. Some scholars say there were two
Platos; but scholars will say anything.

I am sending you a small book of Leopardi transla-
tions. I should never have started them but for you asking
me to do that passage from the Ginestra, so you may look
upon yourself as their “onlie begetter.”

Bessie keeps fairly well, though she is getting rather
blinder. I go on trying to work, and have lately been
translating more Montaigne, not being able to write poetry.
Much love to you and all yours.

Yours ever.
Bob

Little Datchet Farm
Malvern R.D.L
Pennsylvania
20 August 1941

My dear Bob:

I was delighted to have your Leopardi translations,
which I thought ver>’ good. I am glad to thmk I had a
share in brin^g them about.

354

America; 1938-1944

355

of essays (most of which I knew before), and felt in agree-
ment with most of what you say.

As to Montaigne, I wonder whether you have ever com-
pared Florio with the French; if no I think you would see
why I think it worthwhile translating him again — though
I am only doing the Essays, or parts of Essays, I like best.
I also am writing some prose myself, short essays and
reminiscences; also I want to write about a few of my
friends, who are dead such as Tovey, C. A., Goldie and
Roger.* So you see I can’t do you yet; but I may come to
living friends if they don’t disappear soon enough. Georgef
did not want to be Master, but his nolo episcopari was
brushed aside by Churchill, and now he enjoys being
Master a lot. The Lodge has been done up, as it was in
fearful disrepair, and now is quite pleasant and well-
furnished. I slept in the Junior Judge’s room. Queen
Anne’s bed is stUl there, though I think the bed-tester is
gone. We enjoyed our three days visit there. George is
cheerful when in company, but often sinks into gloom
when alone. He feels the world he cared for is at an end,
I don’t quite feel like that myself, at least not often. He
has written a book on Social England, leaving out wars
and politics etc. What I saw was quite good. It will be out
soon I suppose. His son Humphrey has written a book oh
Goethe, which will be very good when it comes out (by
which I don’t mean that “coming out” will make it good,
though perhaps that’s true too). Flora Russell and her
sister called last week, and they talked affectionately of’
you, and Flora said you had written to her, which had
evidently pleased her a lot. She is getting older and is
rather crippled. I haven’t seen Desmond [MacCarthy]
since July, but hope he will come to see us soon. He is
getting older, and had a bad illness this spring, but he is as
charming as ever. We liked Virginia Woolf’s Life of
Roger very much.

* Donald Tovey, Clifford Allen, Goldie Dickinson. Roger Fry.
t His brother.

356

The Auiobiography of Bertrand Russell

WeU you must write to us again before long, and then
we will vmte to you. I do hope you are both well, and
mat you both like America fairly well. G. E. Moore, it
seems, likes America and Americans very much. I am
very glad he is staying there this winter. I hope the chil-
dren ^e both* well. I suppose they are hardly children
now. Much love to you both from

Yours affectionately,

^ _ R. C. Trevelyan

• Conrad is an infant, not a child; but I hope he is well
too.

Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R.D.l, Pennsylvania
9 July 1942

My dear Bob:

For the last 6 months I have been meaning to write to
you and Bessie, but have kept on putting it off for a
moment of leisure. How very sad that your Collected
Poems were burnt in Longman’s fire. I am all the more
^ad that my copy is intact. I love getting your poems —
if you don’t get thanks, please attribute it to enemy action.

I haven’t read Santayana on the Realm of Spirit, as I
had just finished writing on him when it appeared. I was
glad to find he liked what I wrote on him. Philosophers in
this country lack something I like, and I have come to the
conclusion that what they lack is Plato. (Not your friend
the comic poet.) I can’t free myself of the love of contem-
plation versus action.

Did you realize that at a certain time Thales and Jere-
miah were both in Egypt, probably in the same town? I
suggest your composing a ^alogue between them.

, I wrote to George about the possibility of my son John
going to Trinity after the war, and what would be his
standing if he did; he wrote a very kind answer, showing
he had taken a good deal of trouble. John is at Harvard,
and he is to be allowed to complete his course there

America: 1938-1944

357

(■which, ends in February) before returning to England to
join the British forces. For a long time this was in doubt;
we were very glad when it was settled. He will presumably
be in England in March. He knows a great deal of history,
and reads both Latin and Greek for pleasure. I am plough-
ing through my history of philosophy from Thales to the
present day. When Scotus Erigena dined tete-a-tete -with
the King of France, the King asked “what separates a
Scot from a sot?” “Only the dinner-table” said the phi-
losopher. I have dined with 8 Prime Ministers, but never
got such a chance. Goodbye, with all good wishes.

Yours affectionately,

Bertrand Russell

The Shiffolds

Holmbuiy St. Mary, Dorking
3 January 1942 [1943]

My dear Bertie:

I have long owed you a letter. Your last letters to us
were ■written to us in July. For nearly two months I have
been in hospital, as a consequence of my bravery in cross-
ing Hyde Park Comer diagonally during the blackout and
so getting knocked over. It might have been much v/orse;
for now, after a month at home, I can walk about much as
usual, though I easily get tired. You were only knocked
over by a bicycle; I by an army-taxi. An army-lorry would
have been more honourable, though perhaps less pleasant.

Ted Lloyd was to have come to tea today, but has
influenza, so only Margaret and John came.* I expect you
know Ted is going East. It seems he is sorry not to come
back to America. We hope to see him next Sunday and
then we shall hear from him about you both. I am very
^ad you are ■writing some sort of history of philosophy
and philosophers. No one could do it better than you.

* His u-ife, my cousin Margaret Lloyd, my Unde Rollo’s daughter,
and her eldest son John.

358

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

You will no doubt trace the influence of Jeremiah upon
the cosmology of Thales. Yes, a dialogue betv,'een them
might be well worth doing; but at present I know almost
nothing of Jeremiah and his little book. By the way, if 5 "ou
want a really first-rate book on the Greek Atomists, you
should have a look at Cyril Bailey’s Greek Atomists (Clar-
endon Press) 1928. But I dare say you know it. It seems
to me he reaUy does understand Epicurus, which our
friend Benn* never did. Bailey is, I think, very good too
about Leucippus, Democritus etc.

I have not w'ritten any poetry for nearly two years; and
not much prose; thou^ I am bringing out a book of
Essays and Dialogues some time this year, which I will
send you, if I can manage to get it to you. All the mental
efiort I have been able to make lately is a little easy
“mountaineering,” by w’hich I mean translating Montaigne
— not all of him, but the less duU parts. Sometimes he
can be really good. For instance, I have just translated a
famous sentence of his: “\^Tien ^ is said, it is putting an
excessively high value on one’s conjectures, to cause a man
to be roasted alive on account of them.” ^

If you can get hold of a copy, you should read Walej s
translation of Monkey, a 15th century Chinese fairy story
about Buddhism, Taoism, and human nature generally, a
superbly Rabelaisian, Aristophamc, Biblicd, Voltainan
book. It came out last summer (Allen & Unwin) .

When John comes over here, I hope we may have some
opportunity of seeing him. We still take in the
Guardian, so have seen your and P’s letters, with w c

we are quite in agreement.

We wish you could have spent Christmas here wittt us.
Perhaps next Christmas? — but hardly so soon I feM.

There’s an amusing Life of B. Shaw by Hesketh Per-
son, but mostly written by G.B.S. himself. Yet I go
fired of Shaw before I came to the end. Raymon
meris Essays are not at all bad (^Channel Pac e ).

A. W. Benn, the classical scholar.

America: 1938-1944

359

a good review of the Amberley Papers; but I expect you
have seen that. It’s just on dinner-time, so I must stop.
Much love to you both from Bessie and me,

Yours affectly.
Bob

Desmond was quite ill this autumn; but he seems fairly
well again now.

To and from Gilbert Murray

The West Lodge

Downing College, Cambridge

3.3.37

Dear Gilbert:

Thank you for your letter. C.A. lies in his throat. The
speech was against armaments, & it is nonsense to suggest
that Tory Peers are against armaments,

Spain has turned many away from pacifism. I myself
have found it very difficult, the more so as I know Spain,
most of the places where the fighting has been, & the
Spanish people, & I have the strongest possible feelings on
the Spanish issue. I should certainly not find Czecho-
slovakia more difficult. And having rem^ed a pacifist
while the Germans v/ere invading France & Belgium in
1914, I do not see why I should cease to be one if they
do it again. The result of our having adopted the policy of
war at that time is not so delectable as to make me wish
to see it adopted again.

You feel “They ought to be stopped.” I feel that, if we
set to work to stop them, we shall, in the process, be-
come exactly like them & the world will have gained noth-
ing. Also, if we beat them, we shall produce in time some
one as much worse than Hitler as he is worse than the
Kaiser. In all this I see no hope for mankind.

Yours ever,
B.R.

360

The Awobiography of Bertrand Russell

: Yatscombe

Boar’s Hill, Oxford
Jan. Stii. 1939

My dear Bertie:

A man has written to the Home University Library to
say that there ought to be a book on the Art of Gear
Thinking. There is plenty written about theoretic logc,
but nothing except perhaps Graham Wallas’s book about
the actual practice of clear thought. It seems to me that
the value of such a book would depend entirely on the
writer; I found Wallas’s book, for instance, extremely sug-
gestive and helpful, and I think that if you felt inclined to
write somethirig, -it might make a great hit and would in
any case be of real value. It might be a little like Aristotle’s
Sophistici ElencM, with a discussion of the ways in which
human thou^t goes wrong, but I think it might be some-
thing more constructive. I wonder if the idea appeals at
all to you.

I read Power the other day with great enjoyment, and
a wish to argue with you about several points.

Give my respects to your University. Once when I was
in New York, there was a fancy dress diimer, to which
people went as celebrated criminals. One man was dressed
as a trapper, but could not be identified till at the end of
the evening he confessed he was the man who discovered
Chicago.

Yours ever,
G.M.

University of Chicago
January 15th 1939

My dear Gilbert:

Thank you for your letter of January 5th. I think a book
about how to think clearly mi^t be very useful, but I do
not fhinJr I could write it First, for external reasons,
that I have several books contracted for, which I am anx-
ious to write and which will take me some years. Secondly

America: 1938-1944

361

— and this is more important — because I haven’t the
vag uest idea either how T think or how one ought to think.
The process, so far as I know it, is as instinctive and _
uncorisciOliS' ay digestion. I fill my mind with whatever
relevant knov/ledge 1 can find, and just wait. With luck,
there comes a moment when the work is done, but in the
meantime my conscious mind has been occupied with
other things. This sort of thing won’t do for a book.

I wonder what were the points in Power that you
wanted to argue about. I hope the allusions to the Greeks
were not wholly wrong.

This University, so far as philosophy is concerned, is
about the best I have ever come across. There are two
sharply opposed schools in the Faculty, one Aristotelian,
historical, and traditional, the other ultra-modem. The
effect on the students seems to me just tight. The historical
professors are incredibly learned, especially as regards
medieval philosophy.

I am only here till the end of March, but intellectually
I enjoy the place very much.

Yours ever,
B.R.

212, Loring Avenue
Los Angeles
21.4.40

My dear Gilbert:

It is difficult to do much at this date in America for
German academic refugees.* American universities have
been very generous, but are by now pretty well saturated.
I spoke about the matter of Jacobsthal to Reichenbach, a
German refugee who is a professor here, and whom I
admire both morally and intellectually. He knew all about
Jacobsthal’s work, which I didn’t. The enclosed is the

* Murray had appealed to me on behalf of a German anti-Nazi Pro-
fessor named Jacobsthal.

362

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

I

official reply of the authorities of this university. I must :
leave further steps to others, as I am at the moment
unable to save my own skin. In view of the German inva-
sion of Nonvay, I suppose it is only too likely that Jacobs-
thal is by now in a concentration camp.

Yes, I wish we could meet and have the sort of talk we '
used to have. I find that T cannot maintain the, pacifi st
positio n in this war. I do not feel sufficiently sure of the
oppositeTb say ah>Thing publicly by way of recantation,
though it may come to' that. In any case, here in America
an Englishman can onl}' hold his tongue, as anything he
may say is labelled propaganda. However, what I wanted
to convey is that you would not find me disagreeing with
Wu as much as in 1914, though I still think I was right
then, in that this war is an outcome of Versaflles, which
was an outco m e of moral indignation.

""it Is painful to be at such a distance in war-time, and
only the most imperative financial necessity keeps me
here. It is a comfort that my three children are here, but
the oldest is 18, and I do not know how soon he may be
needed for military service. We all suffer from almost
imbearable home-sickness, and I find myself longing for
old friends. I am glad that you are still one of them.

Please give m}' love to Mary even if she doesn’t want it.
And do write again, telling me something of what you feel
about the whole ghastly business.

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

July 29th, 1940

My dear Bertie:

I was very glad to get your letter, though I feel ^eatly
distressed by it. I should have thou^t that the obviously
unjust attack on you as a teacher would have produced a
strong and helpful reaction in your favour; there was quite
a good article about it in the Nation (American). I
hope that it may have the result of making your friends
more active.

America: 1938-1944

363

I do not suppose you are thinking of coming back here.
It would be easy enough if you were alone, but chHdren
make all the difference. T suppose this country, is really a
dangerous place, though it is hard for the average civilia n
t o~ realise fhe'fact; life goes on so much as usu al, with no
p^Scular war hardship ex cept taxes, only news every d ay
about battles in the~air and a genera l impress ioiLJhaiLwe )
ar e au playing at soldier s. I am inclined to think that one
of the solid advantages of the English temperament is that
we do not get fri^tened or excited beforehand as Latins
and Semites do, we wait till the danger comes before get-
ting upset by it. I suppose this is what people call lack of
imagination.

One development that interests me is this: assuming
that the war is in a sense a c ivil wat- throuehout the world,
or a w ar of religion s or what they now ca ll ideolog ies, for
a long time it was not quite clear what the two sides were:
e.g. some people said it was Communism or Socialism I
against Fascism, others that it was Christianity against |
ungodliness. But now, as far as ideas are concerned, it is
clearly Britain and America with some few supporters
against the various autocracies, which means LiberalisTn v
T yranny. I found Benes saying much the same the other
day; he had been afraid that the war would come on what
he called a false issue, of Co mmunism v. Fascism . Now he
thinks it is on the right one. ~~

If ever I can be of any use to you, please let me know.

Yours ever,

Gilbert Murray

(As from) Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass. U.S.A.
September 6th 1940

Dear Gilbert:

Thank you very much for your letter of July 29. My
personal problems have been solved by a rich patron (in
the ei^teenth-century style) who has given me a teaching

364

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

post with little work and sufficient salary. I cannot return
to England, not only on account of my children, hut also
because I could not earn a li\ing there. Exile at such a
time, however, is infinitely painful. Meanwhile, we have
spent the summer in a place of exquisite beauty, like the
best of the TjtoI, and I have finished a big book. An
Inquiry iiiio Meaning and Truth — Hume plus modem
logic. Sometimes I think the tyest thing one can do is to
salvage as much as possible of civiiixation b efore t hp.^^r
dl"the' d§rk~ages_. ^ 1 feel as if we were hving in the fifth
cStuty^: —

I quite agree with what you say about the war of ideol-
ogies. The issue became clear when Russia turned against
us. Last time the alliance with the Czar confused the issue.

S 3 'mpathy in this country is growing more and more em-
phatic on our side. My belief is that, if we puli through
this month, w'e shall win. But I am not o ptimistic as to
the sort of world that the war will leave.

~ Yours ever,

5 BERTR.4Jm Russell

(Permanent address)

Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R.D.I. Pa; U.S.A.
January 18th 1941

M.y dear Gilbert:

I was very glad to get your good letter of October 23.
I am now established in a small country house 200 years
old — very ancient for this part of the world — in lovely
country, with pleasant work. If the world were at peace I
could be very happy.

As to the future: It seems to me that if we win, we
•hall win completely: I cannot thi n k the Nass will survive.
America wiU dominate, and will probably not withdraw as
n 1919; America will not be war-weary, and will believe
resolutely in the degree of democracy that exists here. I

America: 1938-1944

365

am accordin^y fairly op timistic. There is good hope that
the militaristic regime in Japan will collapse, and I do not
believe C hina will ever_bp rnih' taristic. Russia, I

think, will T)e the greatest difihculty, especially if finally
on our side, I have no doubt that the Soviet Governmen t
i s evenj vorsa than Hitler’j:, and it will be a misfortune if
it survives. There can be no permanent peace unless there
is one Air F orce i n the world, with the degree of
international government that thaCiInplies. Disarmamen t
alone, thoug h p ond, will not make p eace setmre.

" C5pinion here varies with the longitude. In the East,
people are passionately pro-English; we are treated with
extra kindness in shops as soon as people notice our
accent. In California they are anti-Japanese but not pro-
English; in the Middle West they were rather anti-En^sh.
But everywhere opinion is very rapidly coming over to
the conviction that we must not be defeated.

It is rather dreadful to be out of it all. I envy Rosalind
[his dau^ter] as much as I admire her.

I am giving a 4-year course of lectures on history of
philosophy in relation to culture and social circumstances,
from Thales to Dewey. As I can’t read Greek, this is

rather cheek; but anyv;ay I enjoy it. I divide it into^J .

c ycles. Greek. Catholic. Protestan t. In each case the grad- i

ual decay of an irra tional dogma leads to. anarc hy. and~
thence to^di^a'tQxsMp. I like the growth of Catholicism
out 'of "Greek^ decadence, and of Luther out of Machia-^
velli’s outlook. _ ;

I remember your description of Sophocles (which you
afterwards denied) as "a combination of matricide and
high spirits.” I remember, also, when I besought you to
I admit merit in “hark, hark the laT :k!l 3 ian_saidJkpught_to
j g o on “begins to bark.” I disagree with you about Shakc-
speare; 1 don’t know enough about Sophocles to have an ■
opinion. At the moment, I am full of admiration for j
Anaximander, and amazement at Pythagoras, who com-
bined Einstein and Mrs. Eddy. I disapprove of Plato be-
cause he wanted to prohibit all music except Rule Britan-

366

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

nia and The British Grenadiers. Moreover, he invented the
Pecksniffan style of the Times leading articles.

Do write again. Goodbye.

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R.D. 1
Pennsylvania
June 18th 1941

Dear Gilbert:

. Thank you very much for your letter of 23 April, which
reached me safely. I humbly acknowledge my error about
quadruplicity. I agree with everything you say in your
letter, and particularly with what you say about the “Chris-
tian tradition”; I have been feeling the attraction of con-
servatism myself. There are, however, some things of im-
portance to note. First: the tradition in question is chiefly
represented in this country by the Catholic Chmch, which,
here, has none of the culture one associates with that body
historically. (On this, Santayana writes convincingly.)
The Church lost much at the Reformation, more when
intellectual France turned free-thinking; it has not now the
merits it had. Generally, a conservative institution ceases
to be good as soon as it is attacked.

I should regard Socialism in its milder forms as a nat-
ural development of the Christian tradition. But Marx
belongs with Nietzsche as an apostle of disruption, and
unfortunately Marxism won among socialists.

The Romantic Movement is one of the soruces of evil;
further back, Luther and Henry Vin.

I don’t see much hope in the near future. There must
first be a World-State, then an Augustan age, then slow
undramatic decay. For' a while, the yellow races may put
vigour into the HeUenic-Roman tradition; ultimately,
something new may come from the negroes. (I should like
to think St. Augustine was a negro.)

America: 1938—1944

367

It seems to me that everything good in Christianity
comes from either Plato or the Stoics. The Jews contrib-
uted bad history; the Romans, Church Government and
Canon Law. I like the Church of England because it is the
most purely Platonic form of Christianity. Catholicism is
too Roman, Puritanism too Judaic.

Life here, with the job I have, would be very pleasant
if there were no war. The country is like inland Dorset-
shire; our house is 200 years old, built by a Welshman.
My work is interesting, and moderate in amount. But it all
seems unreal. Fierceness surges round, and everybody
seems doomed to grow fierce sooner or later. It is bard to
feel that anything is worth while, except actual resistance
to Hitler, in which I have no chance to take a part. We
have En^sh friends who are going back to England, and
we envy them, because they are going to something that
feels important. I try to think it is worth while to remain
civilized, but it seems rather thin. I admire English resis-
tance with aU my soul, but hate not to be part of it. Good-
bye. Do write again.

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R.D. 1
Pennsylvania
March 23rd 1942

My dear Gilbert:

I have had a letter of yours on my desk for a shame-
fully long time, but I have been appallingly busy. You
wrote about physics and philosophy. I think the effect of
physics' is to bolster up Berkeley; but every philosopher
has his own view on the subject. You wrote also about
post-war reconstruction. I think the irruption of Japan /
has changed things. An^o-American benevolent imperial- 1
ism won’t work: “Asia for the Asiatics” must be conceded.^
The only question is whether India and Cliina shall be free

368

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

or under Japan. If free, they will gravitate to Russia,
iwMch is Asiatic. There will be no culUiral unity, and I
[doubt whether Russia and U.S.A. can agree about any
/form of international government, or whether, if^ey^
, nominally do, j^ wi11„Jiave anv_j ;ealitv^I am much less
hopeful of the post-wm world^thah Before Japan’s suc-
cesses.

Tn my survey of the history of culture — alternatively,
“Sin, from Adam to Hitler” — I have reached Charle-
magne. I fin d the period 400-800 a.d. very important and
too little known. People’s conscious thoughts were sDly,
but their blind actions founded the institutions under
which England stUl lives — e.g. Oxford, and the Arch-
bishops. There were many lonely men in those days —
Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore, educated at Athens,
trying to teach Greek to Anglo-Saxons; English St. Boni-
face and Irish St. Virgil disputing, in the wUds of the Ger-
man forests, as to whether there are other worlds than
ours; John the Scot, physically in the 9th century, men-
tally in the 5th or even 4th. The loss of Roman centraliza-
tion was ultimately good. Perhaps we need 400 years of
anarchy to recover. In a centralized world, too few people

feel important. ^ ^

Very interesting struggles are going on in this country.
The Government is compelled to control the capitahsts,
and they, in turn, are trying to get the trade unions ran-
trolled. There is much more fear here than in Englma m
iV'planned economy,” which is thou ^t^cialj sti&^n^^

1 to'lead'BTr^’^cism; and yfef tSTne^ssities of the war
‘ compel it. Ewrybody in Washington realizes that a pear
deal of planning will be necessary after the wa.r, ^ ®
capitalists hope then to get back to laissez-faire,
may be a good deal of difficulty then. There is a great dem
of rather fundamental change going on here, whicn is
worth studying. But I wish I could be at home.

All good wishes.

Yours ever,
Bertrand Russell

America: 1938-1944

369

Little Datchet Farm
Malvem, R.D. 1
Pennsylvania
9 April 1943

My dear Gilbert:

Thank you for your letter of March 13, which arrived
this morning; also for your earlier letter about Barnes. He
is a man who likes quarrels; for no reason that I can
fathom, he suddenly broke his contract with me. In the
end, probably, I shall get damages out of him; but the
law’s delays are as great as in Shakespeare’s time. Various
things I have undertaken to do will keep me here till the
end of October; then (D.V.) I shall return to England
— Peter & Conrad too, if the danger from submarines is
not too great. We can’t bear being away from home any
longer. In England 1 shall have to find some means of
earning a livelihood. I should be quite willing to do Gov-
ernment propaganda, as my views on this war are quite
orthodox. I wish I could find a way of making my knowl-
edge of America useful; I find that English people, when
they try to please American opinion, are very apt to make
mistakes. But I would accept any honest work that would
bring in a bare subsistence for 3 people.

It is not growing fanaticism, but growing democracy,
that causes my troubles. Did you ever read the life of
Averroes? He was protected by kings, but hated by the
mob, which was fanatical. In the end, the mob won. Free
th ought has always been, a perquisite of a ristocracy. SQ_is
th e intellectual development of women. I am sorrj^ to hear
Maty has to do the housework. My Peter’s whole time is
absorbed in housework, cooking, & looking after Conrad;
she hardly ever has time to read. The eighteenth & nine-
teenth centuries were a brief interlude in the norma! sav-
agery of man; now the world has reverted to its usual
condition. For us, who i niagined oursclvcs_^cmocra ts, but
were in fact the p ampered p rpduct§jaL^g.stpcnwy, it is
unpleasant.

370

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

I am very sorry to hear about Lucy Silcox;* if you see
her, please give her my love & sympathy.

Our reason for coming home is that we don’t want to
send Conrad to an American school. Not only is the teach-
ing bad, but the intense nationalism is likely to cause in
his mind a harmful conflict between home & school. We
think submarines, bombs, & poor diet a smaller danger.
But all this is still somewhat undecided.

I shall finish my big History of Philosophy during the
summer — you won’t like it, because I don’t admire
Aristotle.

My John is in England, training for the navy. Kate is
still at College, at Radcliffe. She wants, after the war, to
get into something like Quaker Relief work — She spe-
cializes in German, & is unable to feel prescribed hatreds.

Give my love to Mary — It would be a real happiness
to see you again — old friends grow fewer.

Yours ever,

Bertrand Russell

Aston House
Stone, Stafiordshire
29.7.41

Dear Russell:

Jos has now returned safely to this country, and the
first thing he did was to tell me that he had seen you,
and send me your letter to him as corroborative evidence.
It set me thinking of Cambridge days of long ago, — a
thing that I find myself rather apt to do now that I have
passed the limit of 65 which I had always hoped would he
the term of my active life. This was to be the really goo
time of life, when one’s conscience being satisfied, and
work done, one could pick up old tastes, and perhaps m
old friends. Besides, I have been reading your last book ot
essays, and that alone made me want to wnte to you o
tell you what a delight they are. Many of them are new to

* A well-known liberal schoolmistress.

America: 1938-1944

371

me, and I cannot decide whether I like the new or the old
best — only I am sure they are most enjoyable of all when
read together.

I should like to meet you again, and to make the
acquaintance of your wife. Are you ever likely to be in
England again? Not until after the war I suppose in any
event. Nor shall I be in America before that (speaking
wishfully) happy event. So many of our friends have gone
— and some have become altogether too reactionary!
George Moore is the only one who goes on unchanged,
and I expect you have seen him in America. He too seems
likely to stay there for the duration, but he is a great loss
to Cambridge. I stayed a night last month with the new
Master of Trinity at the Lodge — not so formidable as it
sounds. He is a dear, but one has to avoid so many sub-
jects like the plague. However we discussed old days, and
listened to the nightingales, — and so escaped shipwreck.
Desmond McCarthy I used to see from time to time, but
war-time puts an end to all such social meetings —
everybody is left to work or chafe in his own compart-
ment. K you can find time, do write and tell me about
yourself. I shall ask Jos all about his visit to you when I
see him; he was rather ominously silent in Ills letter about
his visit to U.S.A. as a whole. I am afraid the Wheeler
episode has rather embittered it all for him. Goodbye, and
best wishes.

Yours fraternally,

Ralph Wedgwood*

To Ely Culbertson t

January 12 1942

Dear Culbertson:

After a great deal of thought, I have come to more or
less definite opinions about international government and
about your scheme.

♦ The brother of Col. Josiah (Jos) Wcdeia-ood, who was later Lord
Wedgwood of Barlaston.

t The Bridge expert

372

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

As regards international government, I thinl- it far and
away the most important question at present before the
world. I am prepared to support any scheme which seems
to me likely to put a large preponderance of armed force
on the side of international law; some would please me
more than others, but I should support whichever had a
good chance of being adopted. The matter wUl ultimately
be decided by Roosevelt, St alin , and Churchill (or his suc-
cessor); or perhaps- without Stalin, Roosevelt and Chur-
chill will be much influenced by public opinion in their
own countries, but also by their officials. They are almost
certain to modify any scheme they adopt

I feel, in these ckcmmstances, that my job is to advo-
cate the principle of international government, not this or
that special scheme. Special schemes are very useful, in
order that the thing can be done, but I should not wish to
get into controversy as between one scheme and another.

You are, as you must know, estraordinarily persuasive,
and I thought I could throw in my lot publicly with you,
but reflection has led me, very regretfully, to the conclu-
sion that my points of disagreement are too important for
this. The most important are the following.

(1) Your plan of regional federations with leader
States has difficulties. You yourself make France and Italy
equal in the Latin Federation; South Americans would
resent acknowledged inferiority of status to that of the
U.S.; Germany ought not to be put above the smaller
Teutonic countries, which are much more civilized, and
much more favourable to a World Federation.

(2) I cannot agree to your suggestion as regards India.
I have been for many years an advocate of Indian free-
dom, and cannot abandon this just when it has a good
chance of realisation,

(3) 1 don’t like your fixing the quotas of inilitary power
“for ever,” or even for 50 years; 25 years is the utinost
ithat w'ould seem to me wise. This is part of a wider objec-
^on, that you .have not, to my mind, a sufficient mecha-

America: 1938-1944

373

nism for legal change, yet this is essential if violence is to
be made inattractive.

You may say that the points I do not like in your
scheme make it more likely to be adopted. I do not think
so. It seems to me that the nucleus of any practicable plan
win be Anglo-American cooperation, and that a number
of small countries will quickly join themselves on as satel-
lites' One mi^t hope die same of China and of a resur-
rected France. I expect therefore, at first, a Federation
from which ex-enemy countries will be excluded, and from
which Russia wiU probably hold aloof. As for the ex-
enemy countries, there should be no difficulty about Italy,
which is not deeply Fascist. Japan, I think, toU disinte-
grate, and need armies of occupation to keep order; j ie-
h ind these armies, a new civ ^l'cafinn mnlH.'hp mtroduced .
Germa^, no doubt, will take a considerable time, but
could, I think, be brought in within 20 years. As for
Russia, one must wait and see.

The upshot is that I don’t think we can get everything
in the Peace Treaty. Better a nucleus of Powers in genuine
agreement, and then a gradual growth, always assuming
that the nucleus, at the time of the peace, has overwhelm-
ing military superiority, and the means of keeping it for
some time.

As I said before, I favour any plan of international
government that is not too like Hitler’s, and I should be
very glad if yours were adopted, though I still prefer the
one I outlined in the American Mercury. I should still be
very glad, if you desire it, to go over any work of yours,
with a view to criticisms from your point oj view. There
might be details that could advantageously be modified. I
should also, as soon as your scheme is public, speak of it
as having very great merits, whenever I had occasion to
talk or write on international government. But I cannot
be paid by you for any public appearance, as I find this
would involve too much sacrifice of intellectual indepen-
dence.

I am very sorry about this, both because I found the

374 The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

prospect of working with you very attractive, and because
it will diminish my opportunities for advocating interna-
tional government. For both these reasons I was anxious
to throw iu my lot with you, and thou^t I could; but I
am not good at subordinating my judgment to anybody
else, and if I tried to do so I feel that it wouldn’t answer.

The above applies in particular to a possible lecture at
Columbia Teachers’ Training College about which I
wrote.

I should be v&ry sorry indeed if anything I have said in
this letter impaired our personal relations. Our talks have
been a great intellectual stimulus to me, and I should like
to hope that, by bringing up objections, I might be of some
reciprocal use to you. Apart from all ^at, I should like to
feel that there is a real friendship between us.

Yours sincerely,
BERTRAim Russell .
My wife asks me to send her regards.

R.D.3
Perkasie,
Pennsylvania
October 23, 1942

My dear Mr. Russell:

I was so impressed with your attitude the other Sunday
that I have been thinking of whether I might not write you.

Then Wednesday Lin Yutang spoke of your letter in
PM, which he thought very fine indeed, I have not yet
seen it myself — I shall try to get a copy — but he told
me enough about it to make me feel that indeed I must
write you.

I have for a long time — for many months, in f^c^
been deeply perturbed because of the feeling toward En-
gland in the minds of many Americans. I knew it was
certain to rise over the India situation. I think I knew a
years ago when I 'was in India, and saw for myself w a
would be inevitable if war came, and even then war
l^eemed pretty clearly ahead.

America: 1938-1944

375

You may ask why I have taken my share in discussions
about India, if I deplored any lack of warmth between our
two countries. I have done so in spite of my devotion to
England, because as an American it has seemed to me my
duty to do all I could, first, to see if something could not
be devised to bring India wholeheartedly into the war ef-
fort, and second, because I knew there must be some sort
of strong reassurance to China that we were not all think-
ing along the same old lines. For the latter reason I have
welcomed the excellent stand that the English have taken
in regard to American color segregation in our armed
forces in England.

Now I feel that what has been done in India is done and
the question ahead is no longer to discuss who was right
and who was wrong there but to plan together, aU of us,
how to cope with the disaster ahead. I hope that you will
read, if you have not already done so, Edgar Snow’s article
in the current Saturday Evening Post, entitled “Must We
Beat Japan First?” It is so grave that all of us must take
thought together.

This alienation between Americans and En^ish, it
seems to me, must not be allowed to continue. I don’t
think we will get over India, especially as our losses of
men in the Far East grow more severe, as they must, since
India will not be mobilized to help us. I fear both the pro-
fessional anti-English persons and those who have been
alienated by the failure to bring India wholeheartedly into
the war. I fear even more those who will grow angiy when
they see what the loss of India will cost us.

I don’t think that Americans are particularly pro-Indian
— if at all — I know I am not. But there is just something
in the average American that heartily dislikes the sort of
thing that has been going on in India, and this in spite
of our equally wrong bcharior to our own colored folk.
We are, of course, full of contradictions, but there it is.
What can be done to mend the situation between our two
countries?

I tidnk of one thing which ought not to be too difiicult.

376

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

■ Granting that Churchill cannot and will not change, it
would help a great deal if we could see another kind of
Englishman and see him in some numbers and hear him
speak. As you know, the liberal English opinion has been
fairly rigidly censored. Here in America we have not been
allowed to hear dissenting voices in England and the sort
of oflScial Englishman we have here, and all his propa-
ganda, does little or nothing to mend the rift in the com-
mon man. '

What can we do, English and Americans together, who
know the necessity of human equality, to make known our
unity of thought and purpose?

The time has come for us to find each other and to stand
together for the same sort of world. We cannot yield to
each other’s faults and prides, but we can speak together
against them, and together determine a better way and so
reafiSrm before our enemies and before our doubting allies
everywhere the essential unity of our two peoples.

Very sincerely yours.
Pearl S. Buck*

My views at that time on India were that it would be
necessary to persuade the British Government to renew
negotiations with India. It was difficult, however, to see
how this could be done while Churchill remained in power.
Also, India leaders should be persuaded to end the civil
disobedience movement and cooperate in negotiations.
Possibly the latter could be done through Nehru. I took for
granted that India should be free of all foreign domination,
whether British or other.

From and to Mrs. Sidney Webb Passfield Comer

Liphook, Hants.
December 17th 1942

My Dear Bertrand:

I was so glad to see in that remarkable book I Meet
America — -by W. J. Brown M.P. that yoii were not only

* The author of The Good Earth and other books.

America: 1938-1944

377

intent on winning the war but wished to reconstruct the
world after the war. We were also very much interested
that you had decided to remain in the U.S.A. and to en-
courage your son to make his career there rather than in
Great Britain. If you were not a peer of the realm and your
son a possible great statesman like his great grandfather I
should think it was a wise decision but we want you both
back in Great Britain since you are part and parcel of the
parliamentary government of our democracy. Also I
should think teachers who were also British Peers were at
some slight disadvantage in the U.S.A. so far as public
career is concerned as they would attract snobs and offend
the labour movement? But of course I may be wrong.

Sidney, I am glad to say, is very well and happy though
of course owing to his stroke in 1938 he is no longer able
to take part in public affairs. I go on writing, writing, writ-
ing for publication. But I am old and tired and suffer from
all sorts of ailments from swollen feet to sleepless nights.

I send you our last booklet which has had a great sale
in Great Britain and is being published by the New York
Longman firm. Probably you will not agree with it but I
think you will be interested and Bernard Shaw’s Preface is
amusing. Like ourselves the Bernard Shaws are very old
and though Shaw goes on writing Charlotte is a hopeless
invalid and rather an unhappy one. Shaw is writing a book
— What’s What to the Politicians. He has been writing it
for many months and would have gone on writing a longer
and longer book if he had not been pulled up by the
shortness of paper.

Whether you stay in the U.S.A. or not I do hope you
and your two clever young people will pay a visit to Great
Britain and that we shall have the pleasure of seeing you
and your wife. Pray give her my greetings; I wonder how
she likes America.

Your affectionate friend,
Beatrice Webb
(Mrj. Sidney Webb)

P.S. I don’t think you know our nephew Sir Stafford Cripps ’

378

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

— but he represents a new movement growing up in Gt
Britain, which combines the Christian faith . . . [words
missing] — which might interest you. He left the Cabinet
over India!

Little Datchet Farm
31 Jan 1943

My dear Beatrice:

Thank you very much for your letter of Dec. 17. 1 was
delighted to have news of you and Sidney, and to know
that he is well. I am sorry you suffer from “ailments.” I
suppose it is inevitable after a certain age — to which I
shall soon attain.

I don’t know what gave W. J. Brown the idea that I
meant to settle in America. I have never at any time
thought of doing such a thing. At first I came for 8
months, then jobs came in my way. Then, with the war, I
thought it better for Conrad (now aged 5) to be here.
But all these reasons are nearing their end.

John (Amberley) is finished with Harvard, and return-
ing to England in a few days, to go into the Navy if he can,
and, if not, the Army. My daughter Kate is at Radcliffe;
she always does as well as possible in everything she
studies. Her hope, after the war, is to get into some kind
of relief work on the Continent. I myself am kept here for
the moment by various engagements, but I may come
home fairly soon, leaving Peter and Conrad here till the
end of the war.

I was much disappointed that India rejected Cripps
offer. People here are ignorant about India, but have
strong opinions. I have been speaking and writing to try to
overcome anti-English feeling as regards India, which in
some quarters is very strong.

Thank you very much for your most interesting bookie
on Russia. Whether one likes the regime or not, one cant
help iTnm p.nsp.ly admiring the Russian achievement in t e
war.

America: 1938-1944

379

I do hope to see you ag^ when I get hack to England.
Peter sends greetings and thanks for your message.

Yours affectionately,
Bertrand Russell

1737 Cambridge St.
Cambridge, Mass.

Jan. 3. 1944

Dear Bertie:

We have just read — in the minutes of the Trinity Coun-
cil — that you have been re-elected to a Fellowship and
Lectureship. The minutes also emphasised that the elec-
tion was imanimous. Our warmest congratulations. It is
exactly what ought to have happened.

Yours ever,

Alfred and Evelyn Whitehead

A.B.C. of Atoms, The, 213
A.B.C. of Relativity, The, 213
Aannestad, Elling, 290
Abel, 204
Abelard, Peter, 80
abortion, 253
Abraham and Sarah, 112
Abyssinia, 107

academic freedom, 317-22,
331-45; and H. M. Sheffer,
150-54

Acland, Lady Eleanor, 64
Acland,,Sir Francis, 64
Adam, 368
Adams, Bill, 306
Adams, Peg, 223
Addams, Jane, 295
Addis, Sir Charles, 205
advertising, 289

Aiken, Clarice Lorenz, L. from,
252; L. to, 252-53
Alexander, Samuel, L. from,
81-82

Algeria, 107

Allen, Cligord, 16-17, 25, 72,
80, 84, 112, 129, 132, 136,
139, 144-47, 156, 166, 350,
355, 358

Allen and Unwin Ltd., George,
65, 198, 320, 358
Allen of Hurtwood, Lord {see
CliSord Aden)

Alps, 122

Amazon River, 32
Amberley, John, Viscount
(B. R.’s father), 197, 242,
250, 277

Amberley, Kate, Viscountess
(B. R.’s mother), 277
Amberley Papers, The, 277,
311,359

America, 25, 53, 56, 59, 64, 78,
80, 83, 85. 102, 127, 142,
146, 152-53, 166, 173, 182,
193, 213, 216, 219-20,

235-37, 243-44, 249, 251,
254, 256, 273, 279-80, 289,
291, 299-300, 304, 306, Ch.
VI passim; and China, 178,
183, 197-98, 206-7, 226-27;
domination of, 224, 264; fun-
damental change in, 367-69;
mothers of, 253; patriotism
in, 56, 155, 330, 370; its tol-
erance of opinion, 153-54,
251-52, 319-20, 339-41; in
World War I, 21-25, 29. 66,
100, 103, 107-8

American CivU Liberties Union,
347

American Civil War, 351
American Mercury, 373
American Philosophical Associ-
ation, 349

Amos, Sir Maurice Sheldon, L.
to, 279

Analysis of Matter, The, 214
Analysis of Mind, The, 29, 156,
166, 200n., 214, 278
anarchism, 120, 167, 186, 188,
217, 303

Anaximander, 365
Anderson, Dame Adelaide, 205
Anderson, W. C., 72
Andorra, 131
Angell, Norman, 46
Anglicanism, 224, 319, 366-67
Anglo-American cooperation,
328, 362-63, 369, 372-78
Anglo-Saxons, 368
Annalen der Naturphilosophie,
164 n.

383

384

Index

Annam, 30
Anne, Queen, 354
Annesley, Lady Clare (Colette’s
sister), 17

Annesley, Lady Priscilla (Co-
lette’s mother), 17
d’Annunzio, Gabriele, 295
Antinomianism, 36
appearance and reality, 106
Appolinaris Sidonius, 110
Aquinas, St Thomas, 317, 349
Archimedes, 114
Argyrol (drug invented by Dr.

Barnes), 321, 323
aristocracy, 14, 26, 166, 369
Aristophanes, 358
Aristotelian ^ciety, 132
Aristofle, 105, 349, 361, 370
armaments, 194, 197-98; their
makers, 41; and Tory Peers,
359

Armistice, the 1918, 34-35, 38,
134, 230

Armstrong, — ,71
Army and Navy Club, London,
153

art, 190, 195, 323
Ashley-Montagu, M. F., L.

from, 333
Asia, 367

Asquith, H. H., 5, 15, 103
Astor, Nancy, Viscountess, 154
Astrakan, U.S.S.R., 138
atheism, 182, 290
Athens, 225, 368
Atlantic Ocean, 111, 220-21,
289

atrocities in China, 177; com-
mitted by British Army? 51;
in the Congo, 36, 84; in Ja-
pan, 186
ugent, — , 155

ugustine, St, 110, 225, 301,
366

ugustus, 302
.uschv/itz, 13

ustria, 132, 134, 164, 167,
284, 297, 303

Austria-Hungary, 23, 45, 100,
107

authority, 192; deception of, 4;

as necessarj% 217, 276
Averroes, 369 -
axiom of reducibility, 236, 309
Axionev, — 146
Aztecs, 248

Bach, J, S., 199
Bachelard, Gaston, 241
Badley, F. H., 263
Baedeker’s guides, 141
Bagley Wood, Oxford, 131
Bailey, Cyril, 358
Baker, George, 79
Bakunin, Mikhail, 152
Balfour, Arthur James, 29
Barbarians, the, 23, 110
Barbusse, Henri, L. from, 298-
99; L. to, 299-300
Barcelona, Spain, 135
Barnes, Dr. Albert C., 321,
323-25, 348, 369
Barnes, E. W. (Bishop of Bir-
min^am), 8

Barnes Foundation, 321, 323
Bates, Henry' Walter, 32
Battersea, London, 129, 132,233
Beacon Hill School, 214-17,
255, 267, 273, 280
Beasly, Gertrude, L. from, 248-
49

beauty, natural, 111, 114, 122,
182, 190, 215, 221, 318, 321,
364

Bedford, Herbrand, 11th Duke
of, 196n.

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 199
behaviourism, 289
Belgian Congo, 36, 84
Belgium, 5, 36, 42-^8, 359 _
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 328
Bell, Clive, 135
Bell, Julian, 135
BeU, Walter G., 51
Benes, Eduard, 363
Benn, A. W., 358

Index

385

Bennett, Arnold, 128
Bentham, Jeremy, 250
Bentinck, Miss, 119
Berenson, Mary, 305; L. jrom,
305

Bergson, Henri, 293
Berkeley, George, Bishop, 224,
279, 367

Berlin, 9, 54, 78, 303, 307
Bertrand Russell Case, The
(edited by Dewey and Kal-
len), 320, 347-48
Besant, Annie, 198
Bible, the, 16, 112-13, 290,
354, 358
Billings, — , 299
Birmingham, England, 118, 176
birth control, 176, 246, 293
Black, Dora Winifred {see
Dora Russell)

Black, Sir Frederick (Dora’s
fatW), 149

Black, Lady Sharah (Dora’s
mother), 149, 187
Blake, William, Preface, 131
Board of Higher Education,
New York, 331-34, 338-40,
342, 346, 348
Boers, 6
Boer War, 112

Bolsheviks, 38, 99-100, 107,
Ch. n passim, 192, 225, 263,
289

Bondfield, Margaret, 260-61,
263-65, 266; L. to, 263-64
Boniface, St., 368
Bosis, Lauro de, 352
Boston, Mass., 53, 336
Boston Herald, 335
Boxer Indemnity, 183, 204-7
Bradlaugh, Charles, 185, 198
Brailsford, H. N., 48
Brandeis, Justice Louis D., 154
Brazil, 122, 234

Brenan, Gamel, 273; Ls. jrom,
303-4

Brenan, Gerald, 273, 304; L.
jrom, 301-3

Brett, Dorothy (“Brett”), 120;

L. to, 120-21
Briand, Aristide, 295
Briffault, Robert, 281
British Army, 50-51, 75-16,
139,378

British Association, 247
“British Grenadiers, The,” 366
British Museum, 4, 202
British Navy, 184, 327, 370,
378

Brixton Prison, 29-34, 136; L.

jrom, B.R. in, 31-33, 109-23
Brooke, Alfred, 117
Brooke, Rupert, 56, 117-18
Brooklyn, N. Y., 342
Brooks, Rev. Rachel Gleason,
L. to, 253-54

Brouwer, L. E. J., 285, 288
Brown, Runham, L. to, 291
Brown, W. J., 376, 378
Bryn Mawr College, 67n., 325 -
Buck, Pearl, L. jrom, 374-76
Buckmaster, Stanley Owen, 1st
Viscount, 103
Buddhism, 191, 358
Bulgaria, 181
Bull, J., L. jrom, 50-51
bureaucracy, 259-66
Biurgos cathedral, 110
Buried Alive (Bennett), 128
Burnham, James, 277
Burnley, Lancs., 119
Bums, C. Delisle, 156
Butler, H. Montagu, 354
Butler, Samuel (see Erewhon
Revisited)

Buxton, Charles, 137
Buxton, Derby, 19
Buzot, F. N. L., 30
By an Unknown Disciple (Fit 2 >
Patrick), 308

Byrnes, Martha (New York
County Registrar) , 320

Cadogan, George Henry, 5tli
Earl, 233

Caesar, Julius, 11, 202-3

386

Index

California, 268, 274, 300, 317-
19, 330, 351, 365
Cambridge Liberal Association,
49

Cambridge Magazine, The, 65,
95

Cambridge University {see also
Trinity College), 3, 7, 10, 28,
40, 52, 56, 70, 127, 132-35,
155, 234, 244, 279, 307, 310,
351, 371

Cambridge University Press,
351

Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 132
Campus, The, 332
Canary Islands, 274
Candida (Shaw), 307
Cannan, GUbert, 87
Canton, China, 173 \

capitalism, 115, 152, 231, 318,
367-68

Cardiff, Wales, 88
Carnap, Rudolf, 310, 317
Cam Voel (B.R.’s house in
Cornwall), 273
Carson, Sir Edward, 74
Casement, Sir Roger, 84
Cassiopeia, 171
Catalan University, 135
Cather, Willa, 354
“Caiises of the Present Chaos,”
176

Cave, George, Viscount, 103
Chamberlain, B. H., 202
Chanak, 231

Changsha, China, 174-75, 192
Channel Packet (Mortimer),
358

;hao, Y. R., 176, 207
)happelow, Eric, 73-74
3iarlemagne, 368
lharles. Rev. Dr. R. H., 325
i^harles I, 201—2
'base, Harry Woodbum, 343
3haucer, Geoffrey, 292
Ihelsea, London, 198, 212, 214,
230, 233

Chiang Kai-shek, 254
Chicago, University of, 154,
317-19,361
Chicherin, G. V., 146
China {see also Boxer Indem-
nity), 122, 148-49, 162, 213,
223, 292, 302, 358, 367, 373,
375; B.R.’s travels in, 135,
Ch. n passim; civilization of,
174—75; Conrad on, 225-29;
the Englishman in, 177-78;
and mili tarism, 254, 365;
students in, 17^77; and the
Washington Conference, 197-
98

Chinese Anarchist-Communist
Association, 188
Chinese Lecture Association,
148

Chinese Poems (Waley), 30n.
Christ, Jesus, 67, 325
Christianity, 134, 152, 184, 208,
225, 229, 254, 276, 301-2,
319-20, 332, 363, 365-67,
378

Christmas, 20, 220-21; B.R.’s
despair at, 8
“Christmas at Sea,” 220
Chu, 207

Churches in the Modem Slate
(Figgis), 150

Churchill, Sir Winston, 295,
355, 372, 376

civilization, 56, 101, 120, 173,
194, 224, 254, 352, 364
Clark, Sir William, 205
Cleanthes, 354 ■

Cleopatra, 203

Cockerill, Gen. George, 28n.,
87-88

College of the City of New ,
York, 319-20, 324, 333, 338-
46, 348; Student Coundl of,
L. jrom, 331-32
Colorado, 108

Columbia Teachers’ Training
College, 374

Index

387

Columbia University, 294, 329
communism (see also Bolshe-
viks), 153, 179, 300-2, 348,
363

Confederacion Nacional del
Trabajo (C. N. T.), 303
Confucius, 190, 254, 302
Connemara, Ireland, 111
Conquest of Happiness, The,
214, 219, 269, 289
Conrad, Jessie, 200-1
Conrad, Joseph, Ls. from, 31,
93; 200-2, 226-29
conscience, 88-89, 298
conscientious objectors, 27, 72,
74-75, 77-82, 87-90, 127-
29, 275; B.R. begins working
with, 1^17; Shaw on, 73-74
conscription, 16, 153
conservatism, 151, 366
Constable, — , 84
Constantine, 332
‘‘Consultation of the Wizard,
The,” 179

contraception (see birth con-
trol)

Conway, Moncure D., 198
Conybeare, F. C., 5 1
“Cooperation,” 297
Cophetua, King, 308
Copilowish, Irving M., 317
Le Corbusier, 323
Comford, F. M., L. to, 83-84,
84n.

Comford, Frances, 84n.
Comford, — , 84n.

Cornwall, England, 212, 259,
283

Corsica, 122
courage, 19, 21, 26, 221
Creed, Isabel P., 334
Crime and Punishment, 143
criminal law, 103
Cripps, Sir Stafford, 377
Criterion, The, 245
Critical Exposition of the Philos~
ophy of Leibniz, A, 349

cruelty, 6, 12-14, 18, 22, 36,
62, 72, 93-94, 137-38, 140,
147, 186, 216, 221-24, 227,
267, 275

Culbertson, Ely, L. to,

Curie, Marie, 295

Czar Nicolas IT, 136, 146, 364

Czechoslovakia, 328, 359

Daedalus (Haldane), 247
Daily News, 99
Dalkey, Norman, 317
Dalmatia, 107
Dardanelles, 85
Dark Ages, 110, 364
Dartington Hall, 266, 273, 317
Davies, Crompton Llewelyn,
328

Davies, Theodore Llewelyn,
119

Descartes, Rene, 203
descriptions, theory of, 309
death, 144, 212, 220, 312
Death’s Other Kingdom (Camel
Brenan), 304

Dedekindian continuity, 309
Defence of the Realm Act, 81
“Defiled Sanctuary, The”
(Blake), vii, 33n.
democracy, 4, 11, 109-10, 293
Democritus, 358
Denikin, A. L, 139
depression, the, 274
Derby, Edward, 14th Earl of,
230

Derby, Edward, T7th Earl of,
105

Dewey, John, 148, 174, 188,
192, 320n., 348, 365; L. from,
344; L. from (to Prof. Hock-
ing), 341-43

Dewey, Mrs. John, 174, 192
Dickinson, G. Lowes, 183, 205,
355; L. to, 84; L. from, 104—
5

Diike, Sir Charles, 233

388

Index

disarmament, 365; unilateral,
348

discipline, 36, 214, 218
Disraeli, Benjamin, 33, 230
dissent, effectiveness of, 38
Donnelly, Lucy Martin, L. to,
67-68

Dorgan, Thomas, 336
Dorsetshire, 322, 367
Dostoevski, Fyi^or, 62, 143,
166

Dreyfus case, 67
Dublin, 15

Dudley, Helen, 25, 63, 70; L.
from, 48

Dudley, Katherine, 25
Du Principe Federatif (Prou-
dhon), 152

Durant, Will, L. from, 292-95;
L. to, 295

Easter Rebellion, 15
Eastman, Max, 167
Ecclesiastes, 20

Ecole Normale Superieure, 241
economics, 277, 368
Eddington, A. S., 130, 221, 290
Eddy, Mary Baker, 250, 365
Edinburgh, 89
Edinburg University, 84n.
Edison, Thomas A., 295
education, 10, 96, 116, 127,
189-90, 192, 207, 213-14,
216-19, 223, 231, 247, 255-
■ 68, 290, 332, 339^0
■Education and the Social Order,
273

Edwards, Paul, 320n., 346
Egypt, 107

Einstein, Albert, 130, 149, 190,
192, 199, 252, 291, 295, 326,
365; L. from, 295-96; L. to,
297-98

Eliot, Charlotte C. (T.SH.’s
mother), L. from, 66-67
Eliot, Charles W., 154
Eliot, Henry Ware (T.S^.’s
k father), 66

Eliot, T. S., 7n., 9, 28, 59, 62,
127, 304; Ls. from, 65-66,
244-46

Eliot, Vivien, 9, 28, 59, 62, 66,
90, 244-46

Ellis, Havelock, 69, 249
Elman, Mischa, 187
Elmhurst, — , 266-67
Eminent Victorians (Strachey),
20, 30

Empedocles, 324
Emperor of China, last (Ph
Yi), 176

Emperor’s Gate, London, 273
Empress of Asia, 187, 197
England, 40, 47, 54, 66, 160,
230-31, 304, 321, 327, 330,
333, 363, 368-69, 379; and
America {see America);
B.R.’s love of, 7, 61, 224-25,
275; and China {see Boxer
Indemnity); her colonialism,
70, 107, 375-76; Constitution
of, 279; divorce law of, 215;
Foreign Office, 52, 71n., 168;
and Soviet Russia, 137, 146-
47, 167; and World War I,
3, 20, 41-43, 94-95, 100-1,
105, 109; and World War II,
275, 302-3, 318, 320, 328
English language, 292
Epicurus, 358
Epistles (Horace), 351
Ere}v}ion Revisited (Butler),
118

Emulphus, St, 334
Escorial Monastery, 110
Esher, Reginald, 2nd Viscount
122

Eton, 138, 259

Europe, 104, 107, 191, 230,
303, 341; civilization in pern,
21-25, 40, 45-46
Everett, Ernest F,, 74—76
Ewer, — , 249

Fabian Society, 51, 95, 232,
247

Index

389

Fascism, 298, 302, 363; of
D. H. Lawrence, 11-13
Faust, 3

fear, 21-23, 41, 116, 258
Ferdinand and Isabella, 111
Fiesole, Italy, 307
Figgis, John Neville, 150
Fisher, H. A. L., 136, 205
Fitzgerald, Edward, 186
Fitzpatrick, Lion, 306-8; L.

from, 306; L. to, 305
Flexner, Helen, 67
Florence, 111
Florio, John, 354
Foote, George William, 198
Ford, Henry, 295
Fordham University, 348
Forge, La, 233
Forster, E. M., L. from, 104
Founding Fathers, 340
Fraenkel, Osmund K., 346
France, 16, 66-67, 198, 255,
366, 372; and World War I.
4, 23, 41-48, 100, 359; colo-
nialism of, 36, 107
Franco-Prussian War, 230
Frece, Sir Walter de, 206
Freedom and Organization,
1814-1914, 273

freedom of speech (see also
academic freedom), 109-10,
153, 167, 198, 249, 251-52,
337-40, 342
free love, 176

Free Man's Worship, A, 87,
114

Freethinker, The, 198
Frege, Gottlob, 39, 160
French Revolution, 30, 110,
122, 191

Freud, Sigmund, 295
Freudians, Austrian, 14
friendship, 109, 118
Fruits of Philosophy, The; or.
The Private Companion of
Young Married People
(Charles Knowlton), 198
Fry, Roger, 355

Fu, S. N., 207

Galicia, Ukraine, 134
Galsworthy, John, 295
Gandhi, Mohandas K., 275,
295

Gannon, Robert L, 348
Garda, Lake of, 122
Garden, Mary, 295
Garsin^on, 15, 18, 20, 61, 64,
90, 121

Garvin, J. L., 311
Gauls, 110

Geddes, Sir Eric Campbell, 118
General Educational Associa-
tion of Hunan, L. from, 189
General Election of 1922, 230-
33

Genesis, 252
Geneva, 235
gem'us, 10, 128, 132
Geometrie dans le Monde sen-
sible, La (Nicod), 238
Geometry, 39, 137
George, Henry, 131
George IH, 214
George VI, 330

"German Peace Offer, The,”
99-101, 106-9

German Social Democracy, 77
Germany, 54, 110, I9S, 326,
362, 368; German socialism,
77; and World War I, 3-11,
21-22, 24, 28, 34, 40-50, 66,
70, 85, 100-1, 107, 119, 359;
and World War D, 275-76,
328, 352, 361; after World
War n, 372, 373
Gcrller, Mark, 195
Gibbon, Edward, 225, 326
Giles, Herbert Allen, 179
"Ginestra, La” (Leopardi), 353
Girls’ Normal School, Peking,
176

Girton College, 128, 132, 195
Gladstone, William Ew.art, 111,
280, 307

Glasgow, 89, 190

390

Index

God, 7, 30, 35-36, 52, 93, 94,
112, 114-16, 204, 224, 236,
289, 293, 301, 349-50
Godel, Kurt, 326-27
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von,
355

Goldman, Emma, L. front, 167-
68

Goltz, Bernard, L. to, 332
Gonseth, Prof., 241
Good Earth, The (Buck), 376n.
Gordon, Gen. C. G., 111-12
Gorki, Maxim, 143
Gosj^ls, 134
Gottingen University, 38
Granada, Spain, 111
Grapes of Wrath, The (Stein-
beck), 351, 352
Grasmere, L^e, 190
Greece, 56, 261, 302, 361
Greek, 131, 352, 357, 368
Greek Atomists (Bailey), 358
Green, — , 121

Grey, Sir Edward, 4, 6, 36, 42,
44, 45, 52, 77, 103
Grubb, Edward, 37
Guest, L. U. {see Haden Guest)

Haden Guest, L. H., 136-37,
146

Hague, the, 132, 134
Haldane, J. B. S., 247, 255
Hammond, J. L., 5; L. from,
42-^3; L. to, 46
Hangchow, China, 174, 190-92
Hankow, China, 174, 192
happiness, 36, 56, 145, 191, 220,
269, 289

Harding, Mrs. Stan, 146-47
Harrington, Mrs. O., 263
Harrison, I^s., 146
Harrod, Sir Roy, 242
Harrow, 264
Harting, 268, 283
Harvard Crimson, 335; L. to.
Editor, 339-40
iHarvard Union, 244

Harvard University, 53, 59, 62,
68, lln., 151, 243, 279, 322,
325, 329, 331, 335-43, 356,
378

hatred, 42, 95, 101, 117-18,
253 ■

Hauptmann, Gerhardt, 295
Hearst, William Randolph, 274
Hearst Press, 220, 274, 348
Heart of Darkness (Conrad),
31

Heathen Chinee, The, 226
Heavenly Dog, 175
Hegel, G. W. F., 349
heU, 113

Hendaye, France, 273
Henry Vin, 366
Henry of Prussia, Prince, 17
Higher Learning in America
(Veblen), 152
Hilbert, David, 39
Hill, A. V., 3n.

Hindhead, 195-96
Hindus, 70, 252
Hirst, F. W., 103, 196
History of English Law (Holds-
worth), 280

History of Western Philosophy,
A, 325-26, 357, 358, 370
Hitler, Adolf, 14, 275, 319, 350,
352, 359, 365, 367, 373
Hobbes, Thomas, 349
Hocking, William Ernest, 153;
L. from, 335—37; L. to, 337-
39; L. to (from John Dewey),
341-43

Hoemle, R. F. A., 151-54
Hogben, Lancelot, L. from, 108
Holdsworth, Sir William, 280
HoUand, 47, 134, 160, 303
Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell,
150, 154

Holtby, Winifred, 351
Home University Library, 360
Hoover, Herbert C., 295
Horace, 351

House of Commons, 4, 72, 206

Index

391

House of Lords, 139, 269, 327,
359. 377

Hu Shih, 183, 207
human nature, 6, 7, 18, 31, 35,
105, 114, 115, 163, 221, 224
humbug, 194
Hume, David, 349
humour, 306; Chinese, 173, 179;

in wartime, 38, 89
Hunan, Governor of, 174, 192
“Hundred Best Books,” 3 17
Hungary, 251, 300
Huntingdon, — 154
Husserl, Edmund, 39
Hutchins, Robert M., 317
Huxley, Aldous, L. from, 330
Huxley, Sir Julian, 255
Hyde Park, London, 12, 357
Hypatia (Dora Russell) , 247
Hyppolite, Jean, 241

learns or the Future of Science,
213, 247

idealism, 114-16; philosophical,
279

Ikhnaton, 293

1 Meet America (Brown), 376
imperialism, 112, 183, 193-94,
367-68

impulses, creative and posses-
sive, 9, 188

Independent Labour Party, 230
India, 70, 107, 275, 367, 372,
376-78

Indian Majliss, 69-70
Indian Mutiny, 186
induction, 238—41, 309-10;

mathematical, 287-88
Industrial Revolution, 293
Industrial Workers of the World,
154

infinity, 284-85, 287-88
Inge, Dean W. R., 295
Innes, H. McLeod, L. from, 81
Innsbruck, Austria, 135
Inquiry into Meaning and

Truth, An, 279, 306, 312,
321, 364

intellectuals, 68, 86, 104, 178,
337; attitude to World War
1,6

In the World (Gorki), 143
Introduction to Mathematical
Philosophy, 29, 154
Invention of a Neiv Religion,
The (Chamberlain), 202
Irak, 231
Ireland, 84n., 107
Isaacs, Rufus, 166
Islands of the Blest, 122
Isle of Ski’e, 122
Isle of Wight, 215
Italy, 107, 111, 156, 261, 373
Ito, Miss, 186

LW.W. {see Industrial Workers
of the World)

Jackson, Gardner, L. to, 345-46
Jacobsthal, — , 361-62
James, Henry, S9n.

James Lectures, William, 322,
337, 341
Janissaries, 253

Japan, 173, 182-87, 192-99,
203, 207, 234, 254, 327, 365-
68, 373

Japan Chronicle, 184, 196-98
jealousy, 33, 113,219, 269
Jeans, Sir James, 279, 290
Jeremiah, 356

Jews, 99, 112, 120, 150, 166,
253.319, 326. 331,363,367
load, C. E. M., 156
John. Augustus, 195
John, St., 112
Johnson, W. E., 157
John the Scot, 357, 368
Jones, Rev. Morgan, 79
Jordan, Sir John, 205
Journal of the History of Ideas,
349

joy, instinclive, 35, 38
Judas Iscariot, 112

392

Index

Justice Dans Im Revolution
(Proudhon), 152
Justice in War Time, 87, 233
Justinian, 225

Kagawa, — , 184
Kaiser Wilhelm H, 10, 37, 45,
77, 275, 352, 359
Kaizo, 185, 193
Kallen, Horace M., 320n., 348
Kant, Immanuel, 31, 284, 349
Kaplan, Abraham, 317
Karolyi, Count Michael, L.
from, 313-14

Keeling, Frederic (“Ben”), 117
Kegan Paul, 165
Kerensky, Alexander, 54, 300
Kerens^ Revolution, 25
Kerschner, Mrs. E. G., 167
Keynes, John Maynard, 3, 10,
20, 159, 235-36, 238; 239-40
Khartoum, Sudan, 111
Kidlington, Oxford, 279, 304,
317

kindly feeling, 7, 13, 23
Kipling, Rudyard, 60
Kirkby Lonsdale, England, 1 19
Kitchener, Horatio' Herbert,
Earl, 54

knowl^ge, theory of, 64 .
I^owlton, Charles (see The
Fruits of Philosophy)

Kobe, Japan, 184
Korea, 173
Kotiliansky, S. S., 58
Kremlin, die, 15,

Kropotkin, Peter, 138, 188
Kim-Chao-Shuh, 189
Kuomingtang, 207-8
Kyoto, Japan, 67, 185, 186

Labour Congress, 95
Labour leader, 87
Labour Party, 101, 136, 155,
184, 207, 230-32, 236, 280,

\ 308

Jean, 241

Ixidy Chatterley’s Lover, 14
La Guardia, FioreUo, 341, 342
Laidler, Harry W., L. to, 334-
35

Lalande, Andre, 241
Land and Water, 94
Land’s End, England, 212
Landau, Edmund, 39
Lane, Homer, 258, 260
language, 160, 221, 278-79,
285-88, 312
Lansbury, George, 260
Lansdowne, Henry, 5th Mar-
quess of, 103, 107
Lao-tse, 188,-293
Laski, Harold J., Ls. from, 149-
56; L. to, 250-51
Latin, 292, 350, 352, 357
Lawrence, D. H., 10-15, 56-63,
122

Lawrence, Frieda, 10, 14, 58
Lawrence, — , 84
“Lead Kindly Light,” 354
League for Industrial Democ-
racy, 334n.

League to Enforce Peace, 24,
119

Lee-Shuh-Tseng, 189
Leeds, 25

Leibniz, G. W., 349
L’Enclos, Ninon de, 203
Lenin, V. I., 54, 99, 137, 147
Leopardi, Giacomo, 353
Leopold, Nathan Freudenthal,
254

Leucippus, 358
Leverhulme Fellowships, 311
Lewis, C. L, 153
Liberalism, 108, 330, 363
Liberal Party, 44, 49, 236, 280
Liberator, The, 167
Lichnowsky, Prince Karl Max,
42,45

Lifege, Belgium, 40
“Limits of Empiricism, The,”
310.

Un Yutang, 374

Index

393

Lincoln, Abraham, 21
Lithuania, 251

Littlewood, J. E., 128-30, 284-
86; L. from, 149
Litvinov, M. M., 31, 136
Liverpool, 187
Lloyd, Francis, 352
Lloyd, John, 357 m.

Lloyd, Margaret, 357n.

Lloyd, Ted, 357

Lloyd George, David, 16, 72,
112, 295
Lo, C. L., 207
Ixwke, John, 289
Ix3eb, Richard A,, 254
logic, 157-61, 239, 284-85, 288,
327, 329, 331. 338, 360, 364;
mathematical, 3, 8, 39, 64,
135, 150, 236, 237, 309-10
logical notation, 309-10
lo^cal positivism, 278-79
Logisch-PhilosophischeAbhand-
lung (see Tractatus)

London, 4, 7, 40-41, 58, 71, 92,
200n,, 212, 322; Lord Mayor
of, 27, 83

London Chinese Student Club,
207

London Country CouncU, 259
London School of Econonucs,
281; Students’ Union, 281;
Socratic Society, 250
Long, Huey, 318
Longmans Green Co,, 304, 354,
356, 377

Lorebum, Robert, 1st Earl, 103
lx)s Angeles, 347, 361
Los Angeles, University of Cal-
ifornia at, 318, 331, 334, 350,
364; Department of Philos-
ophy, 334

Louisiana State University, 318
love, 18-20, 81, 95, 98-99, 114,
116-17, 129-30, 276; impru-
dence in, 18; as escape from
solitude, 35; as a “beacon
fire,” 92

Lovejoy, Arthur O., 349
LoweU, A. Lawrence, 77„ 151-
53, 243

Lowell Institute, Boston, 53
Lucretius, 350, 351, 353
Lulworth, 119, 128-31, 133,
233

Lusitania, 8

Luther, Martin, 365, 366
Lutyens, Lady Emily, L. to, 97-
98

Macaroni, Madame, 258
MacCarthy, Dennod, 313
MacCarthy, Desmond, 62, 355,
359, 371; L. from, 311-13
MacDonald, Ramsay, 25, 37,
87, 178, 183, 295; L. jrom,
204-5

MachiaveUi, Niccolo, 365
Mackenzie, Dorothy, 86; L.
from, 95-96; L. to (from G.
B, Shaw), 106-8
MacMunn, Norman, 266
Madrid, 110

Maitland, Frederic William,
280

Majorca, 135-36
Malaga, Sp^, 273
Malinowski, Bronislaw, L. from,
280-81; L. to, 281
Malleson, Lady Constance
(“Colette”), 18-21, 25, 30,
33-34, 127-32, 140, 148; L.
from, 98-99; Ls. to, 91-93,
95, 98-99, 110-13, 144-49
Malleson, Miles, 17, 25; L. to
(from H. G. Wells), 87
Managerial Revolution (Bum-
ham), 277
Manchester, 85
Manchester Guardian, 3, 358
Manchester University, 136
Manichaeanism, 301
Mann, Thomas, 295
Manning, Bishop William T..
332

394

Index

Mansfield, Katherine, 20, 58
Mansion House, London, 27
Mansions of Philosophy, The
(Durant), 294
Marconi, Guglielmo, 295
Marne, Battle of the, 7, 8, 352
marriage, 10, 69, 113, 129-30,
171, 219, 276; in CMna, 182;
companionate, 250-51
Marriage and Morals, 214, 219
Marseilles, 171, 290
Marsh, Sir Edward, 117-18,
328

Marshall, Alfred, 51
Marshall, Catherine E., 16, 72,
79

Martin, B. K., 203
Martin, Kingsley, L. to, 341
Marx, Karl, 14, 137, 152, 277,
366

Marxism, 137, 147, 366
Masaryk, Thomas, 295
Masefield, John, 85
Massachusetts, 131, 335
Massingham, H. J., 308
Massingham, H. W., 5, 48, 151,
154

masturbation, 256, 266, 320
mathematical logic (see logic)
Mathematical Society of Petro-
grad, 137

mathematics, 38—40, 71, 80, 88,
127, 132, 137-38, 221, 285,
287-88; principles of, 224,
282

Matthews, Sir Charles (the
Public Prosecutor), 37
Mauritania, 49

McGeehan, Judge John E., 330,
342-43, 347, 348
McGuinness, B. F., 158
McTaggart, John McTaggart
Ellis, 84, 85
Mead, Nelson P., 33 1
meaning, 165, 278—79; of life,
293-95

eaning of Meaning, The (Og-
den and Richards) i 165

Meaning of Science, The (see
The Scientific Outlook)
Mediterranean Sea, 122, 141
Meinong, Alexius, 309
“Memorandum on the Boxer
Indemnity,” 205-7
Mephistopheles, 3
Mesopotamia, 101
metaphysics, German, 326-27
Meynell, Francis, 26
Michel Angelo, 68
Middle Ages, 325
militarists, 21-22, 50, 54-55,
78, 100-1
Miller, Hugh, 335
Milo, Titus Annius, 293
Mnton, John, 134
Mind, 249

Ministry of Labonr, 259-65; L.
to, 266

Mirabeau, Comte de, 32
Mississippi River, 318
Modem Greats, 131
“Modem Physics,” 222-23
Mohammedanism, 301
Monde, 299
Mongolia, 180
Monkey (Waley), 358
Montaigne, Michel de, 351, 353,
354, 358

Monte Cassino, Italy, 133, 156-
60

Montessori, Maria, 258
Montfort, Simon de, 301
Mooney, Tom, 299-300
Moore, Addison W., 154
Moore, G. E., 84, 132, 133,
158-59, 165, 224, 371; Ls.
from, 282, 283, 285-86; Ls.
to, 282-86, 310-11
Moore, Thomas and Marie
Sturge, 351
Moors, the. Ill

morality (see also Puritanism),
123, 259^ moral condemna-
tion, 114, 121, 347, 362; sex-
ual, 69, 214, 267, 331, 336-
40; Wittgenstein’s, 135

Index

395

Morel, E. D., 36, 87, 103, 106
Morley, Jolin, Viscount, 103; L.

/rom, 43
Mormons, 268
Morning Post, 55, 89, 207
Morocco, 36, 107, 111
Morrell, Lady Ottoline, 3-10,
15-20, 32, 244, 328; Ls. to,
55-65, 69-73, 78-81, 90-93.
115-20, 122-23, 166-67,

194-95

MorreU, Philip, 4-5, 122
Morris, Charles, 317
Morris, Miss, 216
Mortimer, Raymond, 358
Moscow, 138, 146, 176
Moses, 171
Moskwa River, 138
Moslems, 70
Miinsterberg, Hugo, 53
Murray, Gilbert, 6, 118-19; L.
from, 360, 362-63; L. to, 52,
102-4, 360-70
Murray, Mary, 362, 370
Murray, Rosalind, 365
Murry, Middleton, 20, 58
music, 116, 190
Mussolini, Benito, 14, 295, 302
My Life and Adventures (Frank
RusseU), 215, 242n.
Mysterious Universe, The
(Jeans), 279
mysticism, 131, 252

Nanking, 174, 191-92
Naples, 111

Napoleon, 203; and Josephine,
61/1.

Nara, Japan, 185
Nathan, Otto, 296
Nation, The (London), 5, 44,
84, 94, 151, 236; its attitude
to War, 46-48; Ls. to, 40-43,
189-92

Nation, The (New York), 362
nationsJism, 41-42, 70, 115,
173, 252, 370
nationalization, 23 1

National University of Peking,
177, 234
Nazareth, 67

Nazis, 15, 275-76, 361-62, 364
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 376
Negroes, 115, 235, 323, 366,
375

Neill, A. S., 256-57; Ls. from,
257-63, 266; Ls. to, 260, 263-
65, 267

neo-Thomism, 317
Neva River, U.S.S.R., 141
Nevinson, H. W., 354
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 89
New England, 153
Newman, John Henry, Cardi-
nal, 354

Newman, M. H. A., L. to, 249-
50

New Mexico, 12, 122
Newnham College, Cambridge,
127

New Statesman, 341
New Testament, 354
New York, 219, 319-20, 322,
324-25, 33 1- 32, 337-48, 360
New York City College (see
College of the City of New
York)

Netv York Times, 333, 337, 343,
348; L. to Editor (from Phil-
ip P. Wiener), 347-48
New York University, 343
New York World, 168
New 2!ealand, 28 In.

Nicod, Jean, 71, 128, 133, 165,
237, 240-42; Ls. from, 233-
35, 238-39; L. to, 235-36
Nicod, Thdresc, 234; Ls. from,
240-41; L. to, 242
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 366
No Conscription Fellowship, 16,
25-29, 37, 57, 76, 80, 102-3,
Jl3n.

non-resistance (see Pacifists)
Norman, — , 87

NortheUffe, Alfred Harmssvorth,
1st Viscount, 74

Index

Norton, W. W.., 273, 325; L. to.

288-91 -
Norway, 159, 362
Notebooks 1914-1916 (Witt-
genstein), 161n.
nudism, 212, 345

Observer, The, 311
Ogden, C. K., L. from, 165-66
Oldenburg, Germany, 203
On Education, 213, 257-59
O’Neill, Eugene, 295
O’Neil, Colette {see Lady Con-
stance Malleson)

On the Meaning of Life (Du-
rant), 293-94

Open Conspiracy, The (Wells),
255

original sin, 258, 301
Ostwald, Wnhelm, 164
Our Knowledge of the External
World, 97, 233

Oxford, 70, 138, 150, 155, 242,
306, 317, 350, 352, 368
Ozuki, — ,187

Pacifists {see also No Conscrip-
tion Fellowship), 18, 28, 35,
57, 102, 119, 134, 136-37,
184, 291, 303, 341, 350, 352,
360; against World War I,
4-5; Christian vs Socialist,
17; Einstein on, 291; futility
of?, 28; persecution of, 15-
16, 108; their beliefs, 4—5,
95, 274-77

Paderewski, Ignace, 295
Palestine, 139

Palmer, George Herbert, 53
Pantheon, Greek, 33 1
Paoli, Penn., 323
parental feeling, 211—12
Paris, 7-8, 122, 132, 147, 171,
241

Paris Embassy, 32
Parliament, 42, 206, 280
Paterson, Carter, 119

patriotism, 55-56, 134, 186,
254; B.R.’s love of England,
^7, 61, 221, 224; “Patrio-
tism,” 193; Shaw on, 51-52
Paul, St., 113
Pauli, Wolfgang, 326
Pavlov, I. P., 289
Pearsall Smith, Alys {see Alj's
RusseU)

Pearsall Smith, Logan, 59n.,

306

Pearse, Christopher, 66
Pearson, Hesketh, 358
Peking, 161, 172-75, 178-83,
207

Peking Government Universit}',
188

Pembroke Lodge, 196, 242, 246
Pembrokeshire, 317
percepts, 249-50
Perry, ^Iph Barton, 53, 152-
54

Persia, 47, 225

Peter and Paul Fortress, Lenin-
grad, 141

Petersfield, Hampshire, 214
Petrograd (now Leningrad),
100, 137-38, 141-43
phenomenalism, 250
phenomenology, 39
Philadelphia, 321, 322, 349
Philip n of Spain, 33
Phillimore, Robert, 205, 307
Phillimore, Walter, 1st Baron,

307

Philosophische Bemerkungen
(Wittgenstein), 282-84, 287-
88

philosophy, 31, 34, 66-67, 71,
97, 109, 118, 127, 132-34,
160-61, 187-88, 200, 221-23,
249-50, 284-88, 295, 306,
317, 323, 325-27, 354, 357-
58, 361; in America, 53, 356;
of “blood,” 13; B.R.’s re-
turn to, 64-65, 104, 278-79,

Index

397

310-12; B.R.’s success in, 68;
game of, 293-94; Stoic, 1 15
Philosophy and the Social Prob-
lem (Durant), 294
Philpott, Wm. F., L. from, 229-
30

physics, 222-23, 279, 297, 306,
367

Pigou, A. C., 51
Pilate, Pontius, 1 12
“Pimp-Hater,” L. from, 329-30
Pisa, Italy, 111
Pitt, WiUiam, 33
Plas Penrhyn, 242
Plato, 153, 203, 221, 225, 251,
327, 349, 353, 354, 356, 365,
367

poetry, 345, 351
Poland, 100, 107, 237, 252
Policy of the Entente, The, 52,
87

political prisoners, 299-300
political protest, 7
politics, 136, 219; philosophy
of, 9-10, 68, 80, 89, 114
Popoff, Dr., 146
Porthcumo, Cornwall, 212
Port os, 171
Portugal, 253
Pound, Roscoe, 154
Power, a Pfew Social Analysis,
289, 303, 361

power, love of, 33, 228, 111
Power, Eileen, 185; L. from,
202-3

Practice and Theory of Bolshe-
vism, 147, 171, 197
Press, 103; addiction to reitera-
tion, 89; the best newspaper,
185; power of, 23, 27, 37, 42,
108, 243, 280

primitive propositions, 239
Primrose League, 259
Princeton University, 327, 329
Principia Mathematica, 127,
211, 214, 236, 239, 309«.,
349

Principles of Mathematics, The,
29, 349

Principles of Social Reconstruc-
tion, 9. 11, 65, 93, 95, 116,
213

Private Schools, Committee on,
262

Problem of China, The, 140,
178, 213, 225-29
Probleme logique de ITnduction,
Le (Nicod), 239-41
Proceedings of the London
Mathematical Society, 30
Progressive Education Associa-
tion, 348n.

propositional functions, 236
“Prospects of Bolshevik Russia,
The,” 192

Prospects of Industrial Civiliza-
tion, The, 213

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, 152
psychiatry, 219

psycho-andysis, 6, 14, 260,
261-62

P’u Yi (rec Emperor of China,
last)

Puritanism, 36, 367
Putney, London, 128
Pythagoras, 324, 365

Quakers, 35, 37, 137, 148, 370
Quine, W. V., Ls. to, 309-10,
329

Rabelais, 358

Radcliffe College, 325, 327, 370,
378

Radlett, 308
Rdkosi, Mdtyds, 300n.

Ransome, Arthur, 99
Realm of the Spirit, The (San-
tayana), 354, 356
reason, the revolt against be-
tween the Wars, 15
"Red Cockatoo, The" (Waley),
30

Red Sea, 171

398

Index

Reformation, 150, 366
Reichenbach, Hans, 237, 335,
361

Reichstag, 319

relativity, theory of, 130, 149,
239

religion, 10, 30, 134, 150, 191,
214, 248, 268, 301-2, 332,
342, 363

Renaissance, 261
Reno, Nevada, 215
Resurrection (Tolstoy), 143
Reval, Estonia, 139, 146-48,
166

Revesz, Dr. J., 297
revolution, 100, 137, 155, 188,
224, 232, 301

Re\>ue de Metaphysique et de
Morale, 234, 239
Richards, I. A. {see the Mean-
ing of Meaning)

Richmond Green, 181, 211
Rinder, Gladys, L. to, 113-14
Rivers, W. H. R., 155-56
Roads to Freedom, 156
Robertson, Gen. Sir William
. Robert, 74
Robson, J. W., 335
Rockefeller Institute, Peking,
182

Roland, Madame, 30, 110
Rolland, Romain, 37, 68, 233,
298

Roman Catholicism, 32, 150,
253, 319-20, 331, 341-45,
.352, 365, 366, 367
Roman Empire, 23, 110, 225,
293, 302, 366-67, 368
Rome, 111, 225

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 300, 372
Royce, Josiah, 53
Royal Society, 238
“Rile Britannia,” 365-66
Rumania, 234

Russell, Aimt Agatha, 195-96,
246-47

■Russell, Alys 1st wife.

nee Pearsall Smith), 149, 181
211, 246,305-8
Russell, Bertrand Arthur Wil-
liam (1872- ; the 3rd Earl
Russell)

Events: 1914-1918. On
origins of World War I, 40-
43, 44-48; favours England’s
neutrality, 3-5, 41-43; his
duty to protest, 7; and pac-
ifists, 6; works with conscien-
tious objectors, 15-17, 57;
open letter to President Wil-
son, 21-25; attacked at Broth-
erhood Church, 26-27; fined
for writing anti-conscription
leaflet, 27, 74-79; and Trinity
College, 8, 56-57, 71;' de-
prived of lectureship at Trin-
ity, 28, 78, 80, 379; prohibited
from sea-coast, 28, 88; edits
The Tribunal, 29; imprisoned
for anti-War article, 29, 99-
104; experiences in prison,.
29-34, 109-23; on Armistice
Day, 1918, 34-35; effect of
War -on, 3^, 36-38. 1918-
1920. At Lulworth, 128-33; in
Spain, 135-36; travels to Rus-
sia as part of Labour delega-
tion, 136-48; the new com-
munist society, 145-49; his.
horror at, 137-40; the soul of
Russia, 144—45, 166-67.

1920-1924. Travels to China,
148-49, 171-75; his teaching
there, 176-77; his illness in
Peking, 181-84, 199; his

death reported, 182-83, 199,
234, 235; in Japan, 184-87,
196; and MacDonald’s Boxer.
Indemnity Committee, 183-
84, 204-8. 1921-1938. Mar-
ries Dora Black, 187; becomes
a parent, 187, 211-12; founds
experimental school, 214;

- and metaphysical despair.

Index

399

219- 25, 274; succeeds to
earldom at brother’s death,
269, 290-91; loses and re-
gains his creative impulse,
274, 277; marries Patricia
Spence, 278; his pacifism and
World War H, 274-76, 341.
1938-1944. Travels to Amer-
ica, 317; at the University of
Chicago, 317; at U.C.L.A,,
317-19; judicially prevented
from teaching at New York
aty College, 319-20, 331-
49, 352; hired by Dr, Barnes,
321, 322-24, 363-64; in the
Sierras, 321-22; and Harvard
University, 322, 335-42; at
Princeton, 326-27; returns to
England, 327, 379.

Philosophy: despairs of do-
ing funckmental work in
again, 64-65; desires return
to, 80, 104, 118, 127, 278,
310; at work at in prison,
109; on philosophers, 118; on
the history of philosophy,
325-26, 354.

Personal characteristics
and beliefs: his ambitions, 68,
110-11, 140-41, 211, 274;
closest friends, 328; cynicism,
20, 57, 142-43; despair, 8,
13, 38, 59, 64, 93, 140-41,

220- 23; divorces, 149, 182,
219; finances, 9, 127, 213,
215, 216, 256, 274, 278, 310,
311, 320-21, 324-25; feels
himself a ghost, 35, 60, 71,
93, 116, 140; the search for
God, 35-36, 93, 94; home-
sickness in America, 362,
367; changes view of human
nature, 5, 6, 36; his sense of
humour, 38, 89; his imagina-
tion, 7; intellectual integrity,
171; jeaIous 3 ', 33; moral re-
sponsibilities, 7; mystic in-

sight, 91; nightmares, 7, 149,
222; optimism, 181-82; par-
enthood, 7, 129, 130, 201-2,
211-13, 217-18, 220, 223,

273, 278; peace, 91, 318;
pessimism, 236, 254, 255; and
reason, 35, 58, 140, 276-77,
280; Ws sanity, 148, 186;
scepticism, 35, 211; self-de-
ception, 35; self-expression,
116; on social caution, 67;
the pain of solitude, 35, 140-
41, 225; submission of his
judgment, 374; importance of
success, 90; contemplates sui-
cide, 13; his thinking habits,
361; his violent impulses, 7,
34, 186; writes a new kind of
book, 9-10, 36; and youth,
6, 38, 68, 82, 94, 96, 118,
176, 198, 220, 331-35.

Books; see the main index
under each separate title.

Russell, Sir Claud, L. from,
203-4

Russell, Conrad Sebastian Rob-
ert (B.R.’s younger son),
278, 303, 313, 321, 324, 327,
328, 350, 353, 356, 362, 363,
364, 369, 370, 378

RusseD, Dora (B.R.’s 2nd wife,
ne'e Black), 128-30, 132, 134,
148-49, 163, 171-82, 1 BO-
SS, 185-87, 190, 194, 197-
203, 212, 216-19, 229, 235,
236, 240, 246, 247, 256, 273,

274, 276

Russell, “Elizabeth," Countess
(Frank’s 3rd wife), 31, 56,
60,71n., 195,216, 246-47

Russell, Flora (cousin of B.R.),
355

Russell, Frank {B.R.’s brother,
the 2nd Earl Russell), 19,
29, 31, 37, 60, 97, 183, 214-
17, 242n., 269, 27S, 290; Ls.
from, 82-83, 195-96, 246-48;

400

Index

Ls. to, 31-33, 109-10, 242-
43

Russell, Aunt Gertrude (Rol-
lo’s wife), 195

RusseU, Lord John (B.R.’s
grandfather), 377
Russell, Lady John (B.R.’s
grandmother), 127
RusseU, John and Kate (B.R.’s
parents; see the Amberleys)
Russell, John Conrad (B.R.’s
elder son), 187, 197, 200-2,
211-13, 218, 224, 229, 240,
259, 273, 274, 303, 317-21,
325-28, 350-53, 356-57, 362,
363, 364, 370, 377, 378
RusseU, Katherine Jane (B.R.’s
daughter), 212-13, 218, 268,
273-74, 303, 317-18, 325,
350, 353, 356, 362, 363, 364,
370, 378

RusseU, Mabel Edith, Lady
(Frank’s 1st wife, nie Scott),
215

RusseU, Lady MoUie (Frank’s
3rd wife, nee SomerviUe),
274

RusseU, Patricia (“Peter,” B.R.’s
3rd wife, nee Spence), 273,
277, 302, 303-4, 306, 313,
317, 318, 324, 327, 330, 333,
350, 369, 374, 377-79
RusseU, Uncle RoUo, 146, 243,
357/?,

Russia {see also Bolsheviks),
38, 107, Ch. n passim, 171,
211, 224, 300, 378; Revolu-
tion of 1917 {see also Keren-
sky Revolution), 54, 99-100;
Soviet Government compared
with Hitler’s, 365; and World
War I, 41, 44, 45, 51; after
World War H, 368, 373
Russo-Turkish War, 230
Rutherford, Ernest, Baron, L.
om, 269

Sacco, Nicola, 251
Sadowa, Battle of, 230
Saich, Mrs., 66
Saigon, 172

SL Pancras Vestry, London,
307

Sahnatius, Claudius, 134
Salt Lake City, Utah, 268
Salvation Army, 228
Salzburg, Austria, 266
San Francisco, 109
Sands, Miss, 59

Sanger, C. P., 127, 280, 328;
Ls. from, 44, 84-85, 105-6,
199-200; L. to, 268
Sanger, Daphne, 106, 328
Sanger, Dora, 200; L. to, 328
Santa Barbara, California, 318
Santayana, George, 7, 354, 356,
366; LSi from, 53-55
Saratov, U.S.S.R., 138, 146
Sarawadi, — 69
Sassoon, Siegfried, 115, 119
Saturday Evening Post, 375
Scandinavia, 297
scepticism, 7, 35, 57
SchUler, F. C. S., L. from, 44-
46

SchUck, Moritz, L. from, 236-
37

Schopenhauer, Arthur, 311
science, 193, 200, 288-89, 293-
95

Scientific Outlook, The, 289
SciUy Isles, 122
Scotland, 26, 122
Scotland Yard, 248
Scott, Mabel Edith {see Mabel
Edith, Lady RusseU)

Scotus Erigena {see John the
Scot)

self-preservation, 115
semantics {see also language),
338

Semites {see Jews)
senescence, 312, 370
Serbia, 45, 181

Index

401

Sermon on the Mount, 67
Seville, Spain, 8, 1 1 1
sex, 69, 115, 176, 214, 252,
258, 267; Lawrence on, 15
Shakespeare, William, 365, 369
Shanghai, 173, 187-91
Shantung, China, 184
Shaw, Charlotte F., 377; L.
from, 267-68

Shaw, George Bernard, 86, 132,
295, 307, 312, 358, 377; Ls.
from, 51-52, 73-74, 106-9,
232-33, 242-43
Shaw, Tom, 136
Sheffer, Harry M., 150-54
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 59
Siberia, 67
Sidgwick, Miss, 37
Siena, Italy, 111
Sierra Nevada mountain range,
California, 321-22
Silcox, Lucy, 370
Simon and Schuster, 325
Sin and Sex (Briffault), 28 In.
Single Tax, 131
Smith College, Mass., 244
Snow, Edgar, 375
Snowden, Ethel, 26, 136, 146
Snowden, Plulip, 295
Socialism, 153, 155, 188, 226,
232, 277-78, 293, 302, 363,
366, 368; vj freedom, 91;
German socialism, 77; guild
socialism, 23 1; workers’ coun-
cils, 26

Socratic Society, L. S. E., 250
solipsism, 222, 279
Seller, Spain, 135-36
Solomon, 253

Somerset, Lady Henry, 306
Somerville, Mrs. Mollie (see
Lady Mollie Russell)

Somme, River, 93
Sophistici Eienchi (Aristotle),
360

Sophocles, 365
Sorbonne, the, 238

South Downs, Sussex, 19, 214
South Riding (Holtby), 351
South Sea Islands, 58-59
Spain, 110-11, 253, 303, 359
Spanish Civil War, 84n., 302,
359

Spanish Labyrinth, The (Ger-
ald Brenan), 302n.

Speaker, The, 47
Specimen Days (Whitman), 351
Spectator, The, 113
Spence, Patricia {see Patricia
Russell)

Spengler, Oswald, 293
Spinoza, Baruch, 35, 116, 165
Spring Wee, Cecil, L. from, 77
Sproul, Robert G. (President of
U.C.L.A.), 319

Stalin, Joseph, 15, 295, 350,
364, 372

State, the (see also authority),
10, 35, 150, 254
Steffens, Lincoln, 167
Steinbach, Dr., L. to, 291-92
Steinbeck, John (see The Grapes
of Wrath)

Stephen, Sir Leslie, 313
Stockholm, 136, 147
Stoics, 354, 367

Story of Philosophy, The (Du-
rant), 294

Strachey, Lytton, 20, 30, 195
Strauss, Richard, 295
Stravinsky, Igor, 295
structure of physical world,
249-50
stupidity, 256

suffrage, women’s, 231-32
suicide, 13, 132, 216
SuramerhiU School, 257-67
Sun Yat-sen, 173, 254
Sverdlov, — , 145
Swabia, Germany, 203
Swift, Jonathan, 58
Swirsky, William, L. to, 332-33
Switzerland, 160
sj'ndic.'iUsm, 153, ISS, 302

402

Index

System of Logistic (Quine), 309

Table of Springs of Action
(Bentham), 250
Tablet, The, 342
Tagore, Rabrindranath, 295
Tahoe, Lake, 321, 364
Taiping rebelh'on, 192
Tammany Hall, 342
Taoism, 358
Tarski, Alfred, 329
Telegraph House, 60, 214-16,
222, 268, 273-75, 278, 297,
310

Temple of Heaven, Peking,
178-79, 204
Thales, 356, 357, 365
Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop
of Canterbury, 368
This Is Your Inheritance
(Brooks), 254
Tibet, 49, 122

Times, The, 21, 89, 228, 303,
344-46, 384; Ls. to, IS, 345-
46

Ting, V, K„ 184, 207
Tirpitz, Alfred, Admiral von,
13

Tokio, 109, 185, 192, 236
Tolstoy, Leo, 134, 143, 275
Tomli^on, H. M., 32
Tonquin, Vietnam, 107
Tories (see also Unionists and
Conservatism), 266, 280, 359
Torquemada, Thomas, 37, 253
Tovey, Sir Donald, 199, 355
Towards a Lasting Settlement,
65

Tower Hill, 290

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
(Wittgenstein), 133-34, 157-
65, 286-88

Traf^gar Square, 4, 58
Transition (Durant), 294
Trattenbach, Austria, 134, 161-
64

•Trentino, Italy, 107

k

Trevelyan, Sir Charles, 260,
262, 263; Ls. to, 260-61,
264-65

Trevelyan, Elizabeth, 350-59
Trevelyan, George Macauley, 4,
355-57

Trevelyan, Humphrey, 355
Trevelyan, Robert, Ls. from,
350-59; Ls. to, 349-57
Tribunal, The, 29, 99-103, 108
Trinity College, Cambridge, 3,
8, 28, 50, 78, 80, 132-33,
311, 324, 356,371
Trinity College Council, 83-84,
282-86, 379; L. from, 81; L.
to, 286 — 88

Tripolitaine, Libya, 107
Trotzky, Leon, 295
truth, 32, 117-18, 294, 334
Tsai, 207

Tseng Kuo-f an, 226
Tunisia, 107
Turkey, 230
Turner, Ben, 136
Turner, George, L. to, 48-49
Tuttle, Charles H., 346
types, theory of, 165
Tyrol, Austria, 107, 364

unemployment, 199, 231
Unionists (see aka Tories), 49
Union of Democratic Control,
5, 8, 57

United States Supreme Court,
346

Unity, 2A3-AA ,

Unwin, Sir Stanley, L. from, 65
utilitarianism, 156

vanity and energy, 33
Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 251
Vatican, 319
Veblen, Thorstein, 152
Velasquez cathedral, 110
Venice, 303

Vera (Countess Russell), 216

Index

403

Versailles, Treaty of, 38, 203,
237, 362
Victorians, 32

Vienna, 134, 159-61, 236, 303
Vienna Circle, 23 6«.

Vietnam, 107, 172
Virgfl, St., 368
Vittoz, Dr., 64

Volga River, 138, 144-47, 174
Voltaire, 358

Wales, 28, 79, 88, 273

Waley, Arthur, 30, 358

Wallas, Graham, 4, 360

Waller, A. R., 51

Wang, Dr. C. H., 207-8

Wang, C. T., 207

war, 4, 9-10, 35, 114-19, 359;

how to stop, 291
War Office, 28, 37, 87, 105
War of Steel and Gold, The
(Brailsford), 48
Ward, James, L. from, 85
Fisk'e Warren, Mr., 130-31
Fiske Warren, Mrs., 131
Warren, Schuyler N., 346; Ls.

from, 344—46; Ls. to, 347
Warsaw, 237

Washington, D.C., 327, 368
Washington Conference, 197-98
Waste Land, The, In., 244
Waterlow, Margery, 60
Waterlow, Sir Sidney, 71, 205
Watson, John B., 165, 253, 289
Watts, Arthur, 148
Webb, Beatrice, 51, 203; L.

from, 376-78; L. to, 378-79
Webb, Sidney, 33, 51, 166, 203,
377

Wedgwood, Col. Josiah, 37 In.
Wedgwood, Sir Ralph, L. from,
370-71

Weiss, Paul, 325
Wells, H. G., 295, 306; L. from
(to Miles Malleson), 87; L.
to, 255-57

West, Arthur Birt, 95

West, Arthur Graeme, 95; L.

from, 86-87, 93-94
Western Lake, China, 174, 182,
190

What I Believe, 213
What's What to the Politicians
(Shaw), 377
Wheeler, Burton K., 371
Which Way to Peace? 274
White, Captain, 63-64
Whitehall, London, 153, 262,
265

Whitehead, A. N., 5, 84, 118,
135, 153, 157, 235, 279, 309;
Ls. from, 76, 96-97, 344,
379

Whitehead, Evelyn, 5, 84, 135,
250, 379

White paper, 45-47
Whitman, Walt, 351
Who’s Who, 252
Why I Am Not a Christian,
320n., 344, 346

Why Men Fight (sec Principles
of Social Reconstruction)
Wiener, Leo (Norbert’s father),
40

Wiener, Norbert, L. from, 38-
40

Wiener, Philip P., Ls. from,
347-49

Wilde, Oscar, 1 94

Wilhelm H, sec Kaiser Wilhelm

n

Williams, Robert, 136
Williams-Ellis, Amabel, 273
WilUams-Ellis, Clough, 273
Willis, Irene Cooper, 63
Wilson, Woodrow, 21, 34, 38,
300

Winchester School, 243
Wisdom, A. J. T. D. (John),
312

Wisdom of the West, 326
Wise, Dr. S. S., 202
Wittgenstein, Karl (Ludwig's
father), 132, 134

404

Index

Wittgenstein, Leopoldine (Lud-
wig’s mother), 160
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 64-65,
90, 132-35, 282-88, 312;

Ls, from, 156-64
Woods, James H., 66; L. to, 77-
78

Woolf, Virginia, 355
“Words and Facts,” 279, 317
world government, 251, 274,

291, 365, 366,372-74 .

World War I, Ch. I passim,

152, 197-98, 211, 224, 274-

75, 291, 359, 362
World War H, 275-76, 291,
318, 328, 341, 350, 352, 359,
•364,369, 378
WortMngton, Grace, 306
Wrinch, Dorothy, 128, 133,
165, 195, 247

Wuchang, China, 174
Wu Pei-fu, 207

Yale University, 152, 154
Yamamoto, S., 194
Yangtse River, 174, 189, 192
Yeats. W. B., 73
Yokohama, Japan, 186, 187
York, England, 332
Young, Robert, 184-85; Ls.

from, 196-99
Younge, G. M., 311
Younghusband, Sir Francis, 87-
88; L. from, 49-50
Yuan, Johnson, L. from, 187-
88

Zalkind, Dr., 138
Zurich, 241

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bom in 1872, the grandson of one of Victoria's prime
ministers, Bertrand Russell was orphaned at an early
age. His grandmother, Lady Russell, reared him according
to the tenets of Victorian aristocracy. He was tutored at
home, and then went to Cambridge University, where he
quickly became friends with the great intellectuals of his
time — G. E. Moore, John Maynard Keynes, Gilbert Mur-
ray, Lowes Dickinson, and others.

He was married at the age of twenty-two to Alys Smith.
It was a rebellious, idealistic, and eventually unhappy
marriage.

For over half a century, in a variety of disciplines
(mathematics, philosophy, psychology and sociology),
Russell has assailed the myths of conformity and the
injustices of institutionalized illogic. He was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950.

Now in his nineties, he has become, if not an institution
himself, a monument to the worth and power of the
rational individual.

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